The next administration in Nigeria has been urged to scrap the one-year mandatory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).
The call was made by the Nigerians in the Diaspora Monitoring Group.
According to the group, the NYSC scheme hurts Nigerians in Diaspora apart from the fact that it is riddled with corruption and embezzlement.
The Disapora group disclosed this in a statement by its leader, Franklin Adebayo Collins.
It said that the leading presidential candidates in the forthcoming general elections, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress and Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party must make scrapping NYSC a priority to get the support of its over one million active members who normally return to Nigeria after every four years to vote.
The group maintained that NYSC has overstayed its welcome and is no longer relevant in current-day Nigeria.
The group listed some of the shortfalls of the scheme as follows: “Numerous stories of how male corps members impregnated ladies with the promise of marrying them only to abandon them and their unborn children after their service year.
“Introduction of teenagers to hard drug and other social vices by disgruntled corps members.
“Acts by corps members have caused more disunity than unity, and disservice than service to Nigeria.
“Abets crimes and spreads moral decadence across the country.
“Arrange with their principals in their place of posting to evade the one-year mandatory service but still receive the monthly allowances from the federal government.
“Tens of hundreds of corps members have either been kidnapped or killed in their state of primary assignment by terrorists and bandits.
“Hundreds of female corps members have been brutally rapeed by notorious locals in their place of assignment.
“Many corps members serving with the Independent National Electoral Commission have been killed in electioneering violence across the country.
“Poor accommodation and welfare treatment some corps members get in their state of primary assignment that has led to sickness and death.
“NYSC scheme has been turned into an embezzling ground and has now been converted into an organized crime ring of looting government’s money”.
The group added: “All these point to the fact that the NYSC scheme has failed and is no longer relevant in current-day Nigeria. For those of us in the Diaspora, we are the worst hit. Some of us have been deprived of jobs and opportunities and disenfranchised for not possessing NYSC certificates despite our huge yearly remittance to Nigeria”.
