Written by Is’haq Modibbo Kawu; kawumodibbo@yahoo.com
Wednesday, 01 August 2007

killings and destruction of the war and the survival of the country as one, there did not seem to be any set objective which could not be achieved.

The Second National Development Plan, 1975-1980, encapsulated that broadness of vision, the spirit of daring and a very infectious optimism which shot through a lot of the steps taken and achievements recorded.

One of the greatest ideas of the post-war period was the National Youth Service Corps. It came, as a lot of the ideas of the period, as a platform to unify the youths of Nigeria, in a programme that was conceived in the NATIONAL spirit, which had components of socially useful labour that would be jointly carried out by Nigerian youth, of all creeds and from different confessional and ethnic or states background. Our youth were expected to use the platform of national service to help in constructing our country through both the primary assignment and community programmes, but above all else, they would know themselves, understand themselves and help to break down barriers of prejudice and in that process, help to unify our country.

It was a very solid, patriotic and progressive idea, which fitted the frames of optimism, which seemed to underline the thoughts and ideas as well as the events of the epoch. And who can deny that the NYSC scheme has become one of the truly enduring programs of the Nigerian nation? We almost take certain things for granted today, thanks to the fact that we have a scheme such as the NYSC. In 1995, I joined a band of Nigerian pilgrims who were undertaking to perform the annual pilgrimage to the Holy places of Islam, the HAJJ, by road through Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, the Sudan and to Saudi Arabia.

I was making a programme about the pilgrimage for the BBC’s AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE programme. After travelling from Kano through to Maiduguri, we did an all-night journey to the border town of Gamboru Ngala; the following morning was a market day, and as the pilgrims were attempting to complete their border formalities, I saw two young Nigerian youth corps members from the eastern part of the country. I had reflected that day, that without the national service scheme, what on earth would have brought those young men so far away from their homesteads.

I am sure as many readers as possible would or could draw similar lessons from their experience from the NYSC idea. Long-lasting friendship have been cultivated, thanks to the scheme, just as cross-ethnic, cross-religious marriages and friendships have been consummated, as a result of what has turned out to be a wonderful national project. Of course, like most of our national institutions, the NYSC idea has been devalued over the decades.

In the first place, the scheme suffered terribly in the hands of some of its functionaries; the most notorious cases were related to a Colonel Obasa and Chief Kila, who used their position to massively enrich themselves to a point where they ended up being prosecuted and jailed, so many years ago. The scheme was a cash cow that unscrupulous officials milked and helped to devalue its original patriotic intentions. Then there was the refusal of children of the rich to accept postings to certain parts of the country, preferring to stay in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and such places. Then there was the disdain for rural postings, while there were the absurd examples of graduates of education who would intensify lobbying to be posted to serve in banks or oil companies. These inconstancies and patent acts of corruption, contributed to the devaluation of the national service idea.

There was also the fact that the nation has moved on, and this does not mean in any significantly progressive manner. The completion of national service often meant years in the wilderness of unemployment and despair for many of these young men and women. The debasement of the scheme led to the acronym of NYSC being translated to mean NOW YOUR SUFFERING CONTINUES, which directly links national service to the problems encountered in the universities with the transition to a life of unemployment. The corps year remuneration in real terms has not moved up significantly to take cognisance of the inflationary pressures in society.

But in a fundamental sense, the national idea has suffered a major reversal since the mid-1980s, with the emergence of structural adjustment and its successor neo-liberal capitalism. There has been a gradual withdrawal of the state from the lives of the Nigerian people in many areas of national endeavours, and this has also affected national service. A direct consequences of this general pattern of the removal of the state, is the emergence and strengthening of non-state actors in virtually every aspect of our national life, including the NYSC.

I was alarmed but not surprised when the NYSC camp that was expected to foster national unity, now has within it divisive tendencies such as "Associations of Muslim/Christian corpers" and so on. These reactionary and backward groups are merely a reflection of the realities of a society in deep-seated structural crisis such as Nigeria is today. The forces of divisiveness are so strong that we now have Christian and Muslim medical associations in Nigeria, as if the science of medicine can be learnt or applied on the basis of the confession either of the doctor or his patient!

This is the context within which the crisis of the NYSC programme has reached the height of the recent years. Of course, it could be argued that at the onset, the number of graduates was manageable, while there has been an explosion today in the number of young graduates waiting for their call up. But the underlining problem is a national inability to continuously plan its existence in a holistic manner, and in recent years, surrenderi-ng the capacity to plan, to develop and to be a nation; to the whims of so-called market forces.

This is the source of national confusion and a philosophical journey to crisis which must manifest not only in the NYSC programme but also in every endeavour that is related to national development. The bottom line is that the NYSC scheme must be rescued as a patriotic endeavour, whose continuity must be guaranteed by the Nigerian political elite, because it has become an important national institution. The nation wastes so much money and resources on programmes and projects that could have been saved for far more serious projects like the NYSC. It is just unacceptable that any form of excuse for that matter would be posited by the government which would tend to state that the NYSC was unsustainable as a result of a lack of fund.

THE PUNCH newspaper of July 31, 2007, had quoted a June 2007 letter written by the Director-General of the NYSC, Brigadier-General Yusuf Bomoi, to the effect that the NYSC would not be able to mobilise all the 174,000 prospective corps members for the 2007 service year, due to a short fall in its budgetary allocation. The letter said further, that the money made available to the NYSC could only take care of 120,000 prospective corps members. Therefore, it meant that the remaining 54,000 would have to wait till 2008 before they could participate in the scheme. It was therefore not a surprise, that the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), amongst many others, have expressed anger at a systematic effort at the emasculation of this national scheme. Thankfully, in response, the new Minister of Youth Development, Akinlabi Olasankanmi, has assured, according to a report in DAILY TRUST of Tuesday, July 31, 2007 that "there will be no selective service and Nigerians should be rest assured that all eligible graduates will be mobilised for this all important national scheme".

That is how it should be. The Nigerian people should demand that in the spirit of democratic development, the NYSC scheme should be given a new lease of life, through a very patriotic reorganisation which will re-emphasise the original vision for the scheme in the context of today’s reality; the scheme must be run in a very transparent and responsible manner, which does not give the children of the rich and powerful, the opportunity to manipulate the placement/deployment process; it should be better funded so that the infrastructure can take care of the ever-increasing population of prospective corps members and should pay them a decent wage or allowance, whatever it is called.

The NYSC programme is a national idea that came during a period of genuine patriotic thought and practices in our national life. It reflected a belief in the ability of Nigerians to build their own independent, self-reliant and democratic country; it was constructed in the context of a world wide phase of triumph against colonial rule and when imperialism had suffered major reverses around the world. Its crisis today is part of the reversal of all patriotic ideas, when the ruling mantra is that unless we submit to global capitalism, the diktats of Washington and the imperialist financial institutions of IMF or the World Bank, we cannot become ‘developed’. Let us insist on the restitution of the NYSC scheme because it is such a vital project of national development, which we must not allow to waste.

The rumbling monster of chauvinism

The first salvo of chauvinism was fired so early at beginning of the Yar’Adua administration, by the ethnic chauvinist groups, the Yoruba Council of Elders and the leaders of the O’odua People’s Congress, the

OPC, Doctor Fredrick Faseun. They saw the re-emergence of "northern domination" in the first appointments made by the Yar’Adua administration, even refusing to see the fact that they were appointments made by the outgoing President Olusegun Obasanjo, their son. I have always known that these bodies went on sabbatical, simply because Obasanjo was one of theirs, and they would get back to their old ways, once a new president emerges, especially if that president happened to be from Northern Nigeria. Two eminent commentators, Malam Bala Muhammad writing in WEEKLY TRUST and Louis Odion in THE SUN on Sunday, exposed the hollowness of the standpoint of these ethnic chauvinists, and could have put the issue to rest.

However, THE GUARDIAN on Sunday of July 29, 2007 became a platform to stoke negative feelings all around the country, as a result of a rather tendentious analysis by the longstanding Abuja Bureau chief of THE GUARDIAN, Martins Onoja. He presented the rejection of the "renowned rating expert, Olabode Augusto" by the Senate two weeks ago, as a ploy by those he called "greedy politicians who would like to have total control over the national treasury". These politicians in the words of the eminent Martins Onoja, are "from a section of the country" and "he was virulently rejected" and that was "orchestrated by a section of the country’s set of Senators".

Unfortunately, mister Onoja did not tell us which section of the country that was, even when he left little to the imagination in his presentation. It is surprising that he talked of those who wanted to have "total control over the national treasury" as if that is really possible, or as if Obasanjo did or did not have such a control. When a conspiracy theory is being woven to reach a definite agenda, even the most bizarre points fit a most implausible concoction. Bode Augusto, according to Martins’ thesis had been presented by Obasanjo to president-elect Yar’Adua for his "brilliance, technical expertise and diligence" and "he was literally recommended as Finance Minister…All the reform activists then were said to have endorsed the move."

Unfortunately for this man, about whom "no one complained about…regarding ‘money changing hand’," in the words of the longstanding Abuja watcher, "it was at this juncture that the young Northern Turks (at long last we now know who these faceless enemies of ‘reform; are!!!), who reportedly held Obasanjo hostage in 1999 (so they have been at their game for a long time, even when they don’t seem to have names or faces?!). So after being held up for "brilliance, technical expertise and diligence", and he was literally going to be sworn-in as Finance Minister even before the new president came into office, according to Mister Onoja, "then something happened: Augusto’s nomination was leaked to some powerful irredentists (they never have names but ‘irredentists’ can only be northerners just like ‘PROGRESSIVES" can only belong to the Yoruba ‘race!!!), who felt (and

Martins can measure feelings!) that, that Finance portfolio must this time not go to the south, Obasanjo’s endorsement not withstanding". Nobody knew what was going on behind the scenes, not even the veteran Abuja watcher, until a "provocative ‘scoop’ in the Abuja-based LEADERSHIP…(a) newspaper that has always taken whatever Obasanjo stands for to the gutters"; that ‘scoop’ was a front page story in late June 2007, "under the headline: OBASANJO IMPOSES BODE AUGUSTO ON YAR’ADUA AS FINANCE MINISTER. The story then did not register to anyone, as something of political significance until…when Senators from the North unanimously rejected one of the best financial rating experts in the developing world (c’mon Martins blow that trumpet!), without a whimper from their Southern counterparts in the Senate".

Now the intention is unfurled: to play one section of the country against the other. Northern senators unanimously rejected "WITHOUT A WHIMPER FROM THEIR SOURTHERN COUNTERPARTS"!!! Was that what transpired? Was the Finance Minister made for "one of the best financial rating experts in the developing world"? Well, when he did not get it, didn’t Martins also confess that the so-called "young Northern Turks" "quietly met and fished out Shamsuddeen who HAS VERY SOLID AND INTIMIDATING CREDENTIALS, TOO?" The Chinese say that it doesn’t matter that a cat was black or white, for as long as it catches mice. If the "financial ratings expert" lost out to a man of "solid and intimidating credentials", wasn’t the important thing the overall interest of Nigeria? Or the first consideration must remain the part of the country where such individuals come from?

Not to be outdone in this exercise in hysteria, the paper’s Deputy Political Editor, Abraham Ogbodo, wrote a piece in the same edition of THE GUARDIAN of Sunday, July 29, 2007, titled "Reforms: Interrogating Obasanjo’s legacies". While he accepted that "in trying to correct one wrong thing, so many things went wrong under Obasanjo, mister Ogbodo nevertheless cannot let go the opportunity to throw pebbles. He stated that the pervading sentiments today is such that nobody was willing to even "establish areas where (Obasanjo) scored high or at least above average (in his reforms)". Then the clincher: "Ambassador Babagana Kingibe, Secretary to the Federal Government, was reported as saying that the reforms would end. His purported declaration betrayed A SECTIONAL ANGER (hear! hear!!) And he MIGHT have spoken on behalf of groups, which saw the Obasanjo reforms as not favourable. (The so-called ‘reforms’ which were unpopular from North to South have been reduced in the hands of the journalist, as a reflection of "sectional anger"). For Mister Ogbodo, a Political Editor, the "sectional" detachment that Ambassador Kingibe "MIGHT HAVE SPOKEN" on their behalf "prefers to see public utilities "as FREEBIES, TO BE PLUNDERED SO WASTEFULLY". (Capitals are mine).

These are not examples of good journalism really, because they were targeted at stoking base emotions, to achieve a pre-meditated end of setting one section of the country against another. The important thing is to be alert that there will be a lot more of this type of ‘journalism’ in the years ahead; but what is important is not to be intimidated by it, and not to allow such mobilisation of a crudely chauvinistic platform to become a substitute for the building of national platforms of relationship to build the blocks of democratic politics and to defeat the anti-people "reforms" of the Obasanjo period; those were reforms which impoverished the Nigerian people, either in the North, the West or the East. They led to the offloading of our national asset into the hands of a few cronies of Obasanjo and some foreign capitalist institutions.

The Bode Augusto that they described as "one of the best financial rating experts in the developing world" worked to facilitate the monstrous "reforms" of the Obasanjo regime. His "brilliance, technical expertise and diligence" served interests that were not for the advancement of the majority of the Nigerian people, whether they were Northerners or they were Yoruba or Southerners. It was also the same experience with Shamsudeen and his "very solid and intimidating credentials", to borrow Martins Onoja’s words. Those are the facts which the stoking of the embers of chauvinism cannot mask from the public space. What is most important is to build patriotic platforms that can work for all of the Nigerian people, wherever they come from.