The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the most far-reaching reform of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) since the scheme was established in 1973. Briefing State House correspondents after its most recent meeting, the Minister of Youth Development, Ayodele Olawande, said the review had been in the works through collaboration between his ministry, the Ministry of Education, the Office of the Special Adviser to the President on Policy Coordination, and young Nigerians themselves.
For a scheme that has gone 53 years without a comprehensive overhaul, this newspaper welcomes the fact that government has finally moved. But approval is not implementation, and the reform, as detailed so far, leaves open questions this newspaper believes deserve answers before a single corps member is affected by it.
President Bola Tinubu explaining the reform said it fulfils a promise he made on his inauguration day. “On the day I was sworn in as your President, I promised to create meaningful opportunities for our young people,” he said. “Our young people are nearly 70 per cent of our population. They are not a burden to be managed. They are the engine of the one-trillion-dollar economy we are building.”
Whatever one makes of the timing of the announcement, the substance is not empty. The orientation programme will now run for six weeks instead of three, structured in phases that move from civic responsibility and leadership to career readiness, digital and financial skills, and finally specialised training tied to a corps member’s academic background.
Eleven streams have been created, covering agriculture, health, education, technology, law, the green economy, the creative economy and para-military service, among others. A Digital Corps stream will allow some graduates to spend extra time in training before deployment, in pursuit of certifications the government says will improve their chances of employment or self-employment.
On governance, the reform replaces the long-standing military Director-General with a civilian head, supported by three Executive Directors, one of whom will oversee security and be drawn from the military or paramilitary establishment.
The National Association of Nigerian Students has called this a shift toward “a more civilian-driven governance structure.” Its spokesman, Comrade Obidah David, said a civilian head “will encourage stronger emphasis on participatory leadership, policy expertise, youth development and administrative reforms rather than a command-and-control approach.
We agree with the principle. An organisation built to instil civic values in young people has no business being run like a barracks, and the retention of a dedicated security director, rather than a wholesale removal of military involvement, strikes a reasonable balance between civilian leadership and the corps’ genuine security needs.
It is here, however, that our support runs into a wall of unanswered questions. Doubling the orientation period from three weeks to six sounds sensible on a policy document. It is a different matter entirely in a country where bandits raid rural communities at will and where entire local government areas remain effectively outside state control.
A camp is only as safe as the government’s capacity to defend it, and that capacity has not exactly covered itself in glory over the past decade. The Special Adviser on Policy Coordination, Hadiza Bala Usman, says the military will continue to provide security for corps members even under civilian leadership. That is welcome, but a promise of continued security is not the same as evidence of improved security, and Nigerians have learned, painfully, to tell the two apart.
We have said on this page before that the country’s problem is rarely a shortage of policy; it is a shortage of follow-through. The reform’s promise of risk-sensitive deployment, which prioritises indigenes, residents and graduates of institutions in troubled states for postings there, is a quiet admission that the old blanket deployment system got people killed.
Good. That same logic should now be applied to the camps themselves, not only to postings after camp. Before the first cohort under this new regime resumes, the Ministry of Youth Development and the incoming Director-General owe Nigerian parents a published security protocol for the six-week orientation, not a general assurance that the military remains involved.
Then there is the allowance, which the reform document does not appear to touch at all. A scheme cannot claim to be preparing young Nigerians for productivity and enterprise while paying them a stipend that struggles to cover transport and food in most Nigerian cities. Skills certification will mean little to a corps member spending the service year working out how to survive on money that has not kept pace with the price of garri.
None of this is reason to dismiss the reform. The broad architecture is sound, and a government that has finally touched an institution frozen since the Gowon years deserves some credit for the attempt. But Nigeria has buried too many well-intentioned reforms under weak implementation to extend this one automatic goodwill.
The Attorney-General of the Federation should move quickly to amend the NYSC Act, as directed, so the reform stands on firm legal ground rather than executive announcement. And before any corps member spends an extra fortnight in camp, the authorities owe the country proof that the extra time will be spent safely, and proof that the allowance in their pocket will match the ambition of the policy on paper. A reform that improves the badge but leaves the welfare of those who wear it untouched is no reform at all.
