Insecurity And The Plight Of Kidnap Victims

 By Abiodun Komolafe

Temitope Oladipo Fayehun must be passing through hard times. A native of Ilesa in Osun State, Fayehun’s ordeal started on March 2, 2021, when he, alongside others in his vehicle, fell into the hands of some Fulani kidnappers along Osogbo-Ibokun-Ilesa Road in the state.

*Leah Sharibu: Famous kidnap victim yet to be rescued 

While some of the passengers were killed and had their corpses dumped in the forest, others were immediately hauled into a thick forest. Fayehun fell into the latter group. But then, that marked the beginning of a journey that eventually lasted 16 days in the kidnappers’ den; as expected, under hellish conditions.

The NYSC’s Relevance And Heightened Insecurity In Nigeria

 By ‘Femi D. Ojumu

The lofty objectives of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in Nigeria, upon inception in 1973, by the military administration of General Yakubu “Jack” Gowon (Rtd), were to help foster integration, reconciliation and national unity. Those objectives were relevant at the time, given the unique circumstances of the country.

Historically, the politically fragmented Nigerian configuration, barely five and a half years post-Independence on October 1, 1960, resulted in ruinous coup d’états on January 15, 1966 and July 29, 1966, respectively, both of which claimed the lives of political leaders and others from different parts of the country.

Safeguarding Integrity Of NYSC And Its Certificate

 By Ikem Okuhu

Those who are finding it convenient to keep quiet over the scandalous National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) certificate scandal involving the now sworn-in Governor of Enugu State, Peter Mbah, do not know how the localisation of the challenge and its perception as the concern of the people of Enugu State has the potential to create a carnivorous national malaise, capable of denuding what arguably is the surviving vestiges of the remaining symbol of Nigeria’s national unity.

At a time when the country should be celebrating the NYSC programme, which marked its 50th anniversary this year, it is most disconcerting that such a historic national landmark has had certificate forgery as its biggest talking point. More worrisome is the fact that some shade of opinion, driven by what looks like selfish political purposes, appears to be bent on allowing this avoidable sore to fester.

Nigeria’s Incoming National Assembly May Also Fail

 By Tonnie Iredia

To say that the next set of Nigerian legislators may also fail implies that their predecessors had earlier failed. But considering that since 1999 when democracy was restored in the country, our lawmakers have become Nigeria’s wealthiest class, is it not contradictory to describe them as failures? But when the steady decline of Nigeria is considered against the backdrop of the failure to use lawmaking as a tool for the attainment of good governance, it becomes obvious that our successive lawmakers have consistently failed the people whose interest they were expected to represent.

On June 04, 2015, the 7th National Assembly(NASS) while marking the end of its tenure, passed 46 Bills in 10minutes. The Bills were first passed by the House of Representatives before they were forwarded to the Senate which simply skipped all the necessary law-making procedures and passed them, thereby technically entering the Guinness Book of records. 

Are Corps Members Year-Long Slaves?

 By Emmanuel Onwubiko

The current administration is populated by cabinet-level ministers that are not competent but were simply appointed on partisanship basis. Then, the sharing of the ministerial slots was marred by bribery scandals. Some who are now ministers allegedly paid heavy bribes to key members of the cabal in the Presidency to win a seat to represent their states in the Federal Executive Council.

The man Chris Ngige has become very notorious as the Minister of Labour and Productivity under whose watch due to crass incompetence, thousands of university students sat at home for almost a year due to industrial dispute between government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
He also registered two other unions in the universities as a strategic approach to weakening the strength of ASUU.

Let The Students Vote!

 By Nick Dazang

From colonial to contemporary times, students have played uplifting and progressive roles in our country’ storied existence.

Under the auspices of the West African Students Union (WASU), students were in the forefront of our decolonization efforts. In the course of military interregnums and interventions, students have fought gallantly against oppressive and anti-people policies. Even in the course of our democratic dispensations, students have been unsparing of governments whose policies were out of sync with the yearnings of Nigerians or which tended to reinforce suffering and failure.

Kill All The Lawyers

 By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers” – William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2

Tamuno Igbikiberebima is an unlikely star in an action movie. He is a lawyer employed with Nigeria’s national hydro-carbons monopoly. On 17 December, 2020, Tamuno was home in Rumuigbo, in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area (LGA) of Rivers State, in Nigeria’s Niger Delta, contemplating Christmas in the season of COVID-19 and on his phone in front of the gate into his premises, when a Toyota Camry car pulled up beside him.

From the bowels of the car, a young man emerged armed with what the police later confirmed to be an AK-47 rifle and ordered him into the car. Tamuno had the presence of mind to ask why, to which the young man reportedly responded that his mission was to waste him. Tamuno takes the story from here:

“When I noticed how he was handling the gun, it appeared to me that he is not proficient in gun handling. I told myself that ‘ordinarily one-to-one this man cannot beat me.’ ….When he faced the nozzle of the rifle down trying to cock the gun, I started struggling with him.

Repositioning The NYSC Scheme

 By Reuben Eboh

The NYSC scheme was created in a bid to reconstruct, reconcile and rebuild the country after the Nigerian civil war. The unfortunate antecedents in our national history gave impetus to the establishment of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC by decree No. 24 of 22nd May, 1973 which stated that the NYSC is being established ‘’with a view to the proper encouragement and development of common ties amongst the youths of Nigeria and promotion of national unity’’.

As a developing country, Nigeria is further plagued by the problems attendant upon a condition of under development, namely; poverty, mass illiteracy, acute shortage of high skilled manpower (coupled with uneven distribution of the skilled manpower that are available), woefully inadequate socioeconomic infrastructural facilities, housing, etc.

Nigeria: End The NYSC To Save Lives!

 By Luke Onyekakeyah

The reported death of a member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Chioma Eunice Igweike, who was allegedly abducted and later found dead with vital parts of her body missing has added to the long list of innocent and promising youths who have lost their lives on account of being called to serve their fatherland under the now lackluster NYSC scheme. There is no doubt that under the alarming and frightening insecurity situation, the NYSC scheme is an aberration, which ought not to be because it exposes youths to danger that pervades the entire country. No place is safe in Nigeria.

Government ought to have reviewed the scheme with a view to scraping it, given the highly volatile situation in the country. Besides, the conditions that warranted the establishment of the NYSC no longer exist. It is only for selfish reasons that the scheme is allowed to run because some top government officials are reaping huge benefits from it on the grave of those being killed. This is insensitive and unpatriotic, to say the least.

Reports say Chioma Eunice Igweike left her house on Wednesday, July, 20, 2022, for the three weeks orientation course at the Ogun State NYSC camp. Her friends and former course mates said the Federal Polytechnic Oko graduate was kidnapped and killed by suspected ritualists and dumped somewhere.

President Buhari, Show Us Your Certificate!

By Reno Omokri
Nothing could prepare me for the shock that greeted me when I opened the dailies on Friday, October 26, 2018. Right there on the front-page headlines was the news that President Buhari, again, could not present his West African School Certificate Examination certificate because the original is with the army. 

*President Buhari and his wife, Aisha

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me! That lame excuse could hardly suffice in 2015 when President Jonathan was the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, but it is certainly an untenable excuse today!

NYSC: National Service Or National Scam?

By Olatunde Akinyemi

It is the pride of most parents to see their wards all dressed up in khaki and boots. A symbol that the child has scaled through tertiary education, and successfully served the country,  a matured individual. For some,  it signifies a bonafide citizen of the nation, ‘omo ijoba’, as my Yoruba friends will say, a bragging right. 

Many years ago, as a Primary 5 student, my uncle came home on one particular  day in that popular uniform. I didn’t know what course he did in school, I didn’t know what school he attended,  no idea he had graduated, all I knew was that he had gone to serve.

Nigeria: Kemi Adeosun’s Ungolden Silence

By Ray Ekpu

I have admired Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, the Minister of Finance, from a distance. She speaks English the way the Queen of England speaks even though she seems to add a bit of cockney accent to it. She is good with figures which I am not good at which is one reason I chose the writing craft as my life-long engagement. She shows competence, diligence, substantial eloquence and some level of transparency in her work. So I was thrilled to meet her on May 5, 2016 at the Chinese Restaurant, OPIC Plaza, next door to the Sheraton Hotel in Ikeja. 

*President Buhari and Kemi Adeosun

She was one of the four ministers that came to meet with the media chieftains of the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association of Nigeria (NPAN). They came to explain at a town hall meeting what the Federal Government had been doing – and not doing – since it took over the Aso Villa a year earlier. She displayed a gutsy performance and I thought she was a courageous young lady. I asked her, not entirely jokingly, whether she had a bullet proof vest because of her trenchant and frontal attack on tax evaders and avoiders and her extirpation of thousands of ghosts from the payroll of the Federal Government. Since then my admiration for her has remained high. 

Our Broken Souls

By Moses Obroku

“We have come home
From the bloodless wars
With sunken hearts
Our boots full of pride-
From the true massacre of the soul
When we have asked
‘What does it cost
To be loved and left alone’ "

-- Lenrie Peters

It would appear that Lenrie Peters, that great Gambian poet who only passed away on May 27th 2009, had the situation of today’s Nigerian graduate in mind when he wrote the above poem very many years ago. Indeed the situation of the Nigerian graduate is pathetic, very pathetic. For a while now, I have had nothing but deep respect for the majority of youths in this country. They are peaceable, strong and hardworking; with uncanny determination to succeed no matter what it takes.

President Goodluck Jonathan and his wife, Patience, during                                      an African Union (AU)  conference in Uganda (2010)

Many of Nigeria’s youths attempt external examinations even while they are still in high school, just to get a head start on the journey to success. No one will forget in a hurry the experiences at WAEC and JAMB offices nationwide!

Undaunted, the Nigerian youth proceeds to the university where he has to contend with heavy fees, lack of facilities, sometimes incompetent lecturers and the frequent disruption of academic activities by strike actions, where of course he is the grass between the lecturers and the federal government.

After being severely battered by the academic system and a year or two of his life forever wasted by bureaucracies, the Nigerian youth  finally graduates and the same insensitive  government still demands another year of compulsory National Service from him. Peaceable and cooperative, these graduates wear the NYSC uniforms with pride and are dispatched to the far flung corners of this nation.



Graduating Students at the University of Lagos

Some of them to places they ordinarily may never step into in this lifetime. But seeing victory in sight, these brave youths soldier on in service to fatherland. Many of them the hopes of their families that have been shackled by poverty, and have endured no small pain in ensuring such youths get what it takes to make a difference in their collective lives.

A few will meet violent deaths in National Service, caught in the cross fire of ethnic, religious, or political disturbances. The recent killing of some corps members in the northern part of the country during the last election in April 2011 is still fresh in our memories.

Armed with, their first degrees and  NYSC discharge certificates, these graduates quickly construct their CVs, and eagerly circulate them online and in hard copies to as many friends, family members and associates; as well as going from door to door of offices. They are that determined!

A few of these graduates manage to secure placement with some companies, but for the vast majority of Nigerian graduates, the harsh realities begin to set in. what they had thought would only take a couple of months before getting jobs soon start dragging on endlessly.

The jobless situation in the country has become so pathetic that the very insulting commission sales jobs for mostly needless products are now being brandished everywhere by budding entrepreneurs. Have you ever noticed those small squares in the pages of various newspapers advertising these commission based jobs?

Since the government has shied away from the responsibility of job creation, all manner of people who have highly exploitative capitalist tendencies, some of whom do not have any business being entrepreneurs are daily humiliating Nigerian graduates. With the way we are going, before long refuse collectors and septic tank evacuators would soon be recruiting graduates to do sales and marketing for them (God forbid!).



Nigerian Graduates during the one year compulsory
 National Service (NYSC

The proliferation of all manner of reality TV shows, talent hunts and pageants in Nigeria is a reflection of a careful target at the vulnerable unemployed graduates in Nigeria. Often time, applicants are required to register with substantial sums to become contestants.

There is no control whatsoever on the activities of these showbiz people. Sometimes, after collecting registration fees from unsuspecting candidates, the organizers simply vanish!

It is here that graduates of a discipline end up working in unrelated fields. I had joked with a friend who studied civil engineering but now works in a bank that, I think he is doing ‘financial engineering’ (maybe this practice is acceptable to the government that is why it is reflected in the ministerial appointments. Or what logical explanation can anyone proffer about the very lopsided portfolios given to our ministers?)

The Nigerian government has a striking resemblance to an uncaring father in respect of its policies towards its graduates. It has never shown any realistic interest in the welfare of the myriads of graduates churned out annually.

Not employing, it has not made the necessary enabling environment possible to bring about the much needed industrialization to cater for the millions of unemployed people milling about the country.



Queuing for non-existent jobs

Regime after regime has instead shown an uncanny proclivity for bleeding government funds white for personal gains. There don’t seem to be any hope in sight for the unemployed Nigerian graduate. It is simply a fait accompli as he seems to stand a better chance of escaping an apparition in a house of mirrors than relying on the government for jobs.

Disillusioned, these individuals are thrown out in the cold by the State that they have loved and served with diligence. They are mocked and humiliated by the state, stripped of any dignity and consigned among the heap of those who live below the poverty line in the country.

I once stopped a commercial bike operator at Victoria Island in Lagos, sometime in 2006 to take a ride to some other part of the vicinity. To my surprise, the fellow told me that he was a HND holder who had come to the Island to drop his unsolicited credentials in expectation for a job with companies around, and that he does the bike business to survive in the interim. While self help is encouraged, this fellow’s situation is a reflection of the experiences of many graduates of this country.



Any reward for this effort?

Surely, the Nigerian graduate deserves a better deal than these bone crushing experiences he is getting from successive governments of Nigeria. Whether it is clear to the powers that be or not, beyond the physical impoverishment these people face daily, is the mental degeneration that comes with not being able to put to use knowledge so painstakingly acquired in tertiary institutions.

For each working day they remain unemployed, they get further devalued and diminished, and ironically the nation gets diminished too. For as long as nothing is done to improve the situation of the unemployed, there is a systemic breakdown of the souls of these individuals who are supposed to be tomorrow’s leaders.

And the government should be more wary because most scary is the fact that there is no prosthetic for the broken soul.

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Mr. Obroku, a legal practitioner, contributed this piece to this blog from Abuja. Email:mosesobroku@yahoo.com