NYSC: To Be or Not To Be? Notes for Those Who Care Enough

I had no issues fulfilling the NYSC at least at the time that I observed my own service year in 2004/2005. I didn't know all that I had to contemplate then. I'm discovering many details of that one fiscal year that I had no idea transpired. In fact, I could not have even been on that compound for all that must have happened while I slept or was away doing my skill acquisition learning to sew kembe and iro and buba. But the corps has continued, despite deaths, fights and all sorts of things that Nigerian graduates have grappled with as a result of it. I'm listing here notes for those who would be naive like I was over 15 years ago, a young graduate, having no idea that I could as well have served in a jungle rather than where I did, as civil as the environment seemed. 

 

1.  The NYSC is NOT an all-youth empowerment programme. It's not for any youth who's eighteen years old. It's not a skills acquisition programme to become a 'graduate.' It's not a degree awarding programme. Your university or polytechnic would have awarded your education before you are called or mobilized to serve Nigeria. I wouldn't know all the historical changes that the corps has undergone over the years but I do know the following facts. The corps serves young graduates of Nigerian origin, home and abroad, and gives them the opportunity to serve their homeland/fatherland. These graduates have to be under 30 years old, not LOOK under 30 years old. They must have also graduated higher education with a bachelor's degree or a higher national diploma from an accredited institution. I don't think that the associate's degree is an equivalent nor accepted by the NYSC. Naturally, married women were exempted from travelling outside of their places/states of domicile on request. Many of those still chose to observe the corps away from their families, perhaps for family support purposes or other purposes (don't ask me what those were). I was neither married nor nor did I request in writing to serve in Oyo State after graduating the University of Ibadan. Nobody else had the right to make that decision for me, not even my parents, without my acknowledgment. After collecting your discharge certificate, after the passing out parade, there's no carry over. You don't repeat the NYSC, which is not the NYCP - National Youth Camaraderie Project. It's a once in a lifetime offer, as far as I'm concerned upon graduation. I passed out in 2005 and have known only one discharge certificate collected from Oyo State in 2005. I have never returned to my place of primary assignment since.
   
2. Beware of kleptomaniacs. And aw! Beware of kleptomania, yes. Don't be a thief and/or enemy of progress. Somebody stole my NYSC badge and note of lesson. Somebody among the women in our flat, I suspect Theresa Agbugui, scrambled my luggage lock, changed the dial and got me to destroy that piece of luggage. That must be a notorious criminal with whom I shared an apartment one whole year. Shame on her! Guard your belongings against itchy fingers and itchy palms!
3. The NYSC flat/apartment/lodge is not a brothel, except the place of primary assignment you are attached to demands it to be used as such. Remember, prostitution, which is having sex for money (and I add gain), is a crime against the Federal Republic of Nigeria. So, beware of blackmail. Don't be a victim of blackmail or becoming enslaved by blackmailers. One male corps member would put his fingers in the shorts of a female corps member (name withheld) as she sat in the verandah of the female corps members' residence and stimulate her private part in front of some other female corps members  - Madam Mabel Ezeobi told me so and I witnessed it too. He later invited her to his residence in Lagos, according to her. Perhaps in compensation or vendetta she collected most if not all of his 'allowee' - monthly allowances. It was this same male corps member who had a whole room to himself yet was hardly on the compound to do any work and wasn't made to share a room with any other male corps member as even the females were made to do. Talk of Nigeria's waste of resources and our worship of privilege. Another female corps member brought her boyfriend from out of state and lodged her with us in the flat we shared, using our bathroom and toilet for days. It could have been cool if the male and female corps members are allowed to live in the same bedrooms. But this wasn't the case, yet it was all one hard to bear for another adult. No fodder for gossip to aid joblessness. I don't think that they even got married. Beware of other people taking your rights and standards for granted. I didn't complain to the military officers because the female corps members were 'their women.' People have double standard and are happy to judge the same crime differently. This is unfair and that's why you shouldn't shy away from asking for redeployment when something evil as I experienced happens to you. Beware of nymphomania.
4.  The NYSC is not a fundamental human right. Participate if and only if you qualify in age and academic attainment. Don't go to camp in order to catch a rich man to cure your headache. It isn't the gold-digger's day out. I talk like I have privilege. No, I don't. I don't have to say it, but Nigerians are destroying Nigeria. NYSC is not a ticket nor a gift card to the Baby Mama status acquisition shop/programme. Shoppers beware. Nigeria must have an NYSC Trust Fund, which never runs dry. The corps is never bankrupt and mustn't be gulping foreign aid and putting us on the fast track to national debt trap a.k.a slavery. The corps is graduating into a micro finance bank of sorts. **Hush.**
5. Don't assume that every corps member is bona fide. There are many decoy who are being used as spies, troublemakers and busybody by your enemies of progress and cult leaders many miles from your assignment. No thanks to the GSM, a call is all it takes to muddle things for you. These notes are real, especially if you are a gem or are good at ruffling some feathers. These spies are often repeat corps members who go by the name 'corper.' That is, they go from state to state to do the NYSC. Many of them are commercial sex workers, hookers, ashewo, cult boys and girls. If you are in the right circles you'll find those who have done the NYSC twice or more times. Don't be one of them. Don't be a victim. The corps is not a microfinance bank. Report the police if you are under pressure to do the NYSC when you don't qualify.
6. The NYSC isn't a family support programme and isn't hereditary nor transferable. It's perfectly possible to save some money from the monthly allowances and start a business or engage in a life project like postgraduate education or marriage afterwards. Nobody owes you an estate for allowing youth one year to laze around or work your butts off as donkeys. Nigeria is broke.
   
7. The NYSC is for national unity, not for national integration/relocation. Nobody is forcing relocation due to the corps. Nigerians are free agents. Beware of lying for national unity. Does the corps require people to relocate permanently to their state of service when there's no assurance of a job? I don't think so, although it's possibly an opportunity to start out life on your own, especially if you have lived at home all your life or schooled in your state of origin or residence. Don't initiate personal projects for vainglory and force people to follow you around. I met somebody from my NYSC ppa in Boston. Why? I don't know. I had gone to Boston all by myself, no family, no boyfriend, no husband, so what's up? I didn't send him an invitation nor should he be tolerated as a spy. The man, one Mr Wale, taught English at AFCS, Ibadan. I wouldn't know if he won a visa lottery.Why Boston? Why Hyde Park Avenue too like me? I worry about these unnecessary coincidences. He was never a friend nor lover of mine. Of course he could have been in touch with the people in Ibadan and Boston. I didn't expect that madness from a group I had no contract with, talking about AFCS, Ile Igbon/Iyana Offa.. Global stalkers they were. Don't imagine that people are sane. Beware of stalkers. They brandish sound education but they are evil. I'm not anybody's link to the USA nor eternity. Don't force any union. Marriage due to the NYSC is desirable NOT mandatory nor compulsory.
8. Sex isn't a fundamental right of anybody's. It's to be expected as a right among couples and consenting adults who do not have family ties. No job gives you the right to expect, require, demand, harass, stalk or punish anybody, adult or child for or over sex.  NYSC marriage not NYSC sex is encouraged by the authorities. No sane country produces 'national sex salute' to any military officer nor 'national handshake' to civil servants annually as a right or fringe benefit at work in the name of NYSC participants. We are in trouble indeed! If my mother or any other parent or guardian is mad or a nuisance, report her/them to the police.
9. Do community project, if possible. Nigeria should reward patriotism not conspiracy. We didn't do any community projects and I don't know what anybody is bragging about.
10. NYSC is a job and not a year long national camaraderie project. It lasts for one fiscal year. The workplace is called a ppa - place of primary assignment. Primary means first, basic and possibly most important assignment of your work life. It shouldn't be the only place of assignment/work for you except you choose to. I studied for a BA and not a B.Ed. Teaching wasn't my mainstay. I was primarily an artist and education needed special skills, which I didn't possess. A postgraduate diploma in education didn't come with the NYSC.
11. Agree/Negotiate to remain at your ppa if you like to and you are allowed to. Don't let any fool tell you otherwise. No where except in slavery is anybody forced to work where he or she abhors. Leave if it's not the kind of work you like to do. Scarcity of work is no reason to be dictated to by anybody especially by one who doesn't consult you or wouldn't do the job by himself or herself. You are nobody's Girl/Boy Friday. The prize of citizenship should be greater than the price of citizenship for Nigerians to have a healthy citizenry, in my opinion. More on that in another blog post.
12. Gossip less and do more work. It's best if you don't gossip at all. NYSC isn't a F*ck and Gist or Gossip (F&G) jamboree. Nobody owes you an apology for how they choose to live their lives. Those who slept with up to ten men in one year have no moral right to deride those who slept with one or two persons.  Such arrogance. Is the NYSC a promiscuity contest? Everybody has a moral compass that they use to guide themselves. Most Nigerians are either Christian or Muslim, which two religions preach against and even punish prostitution and promiscuity. Being agnostic oughtn't make anybody immoral.
13. Leaders of corps members aren't always fair. Some have brought their girlfriends to work, which has led to the vast decay in the Nigerian society and in her civil service including the 'couch potato syndrome.'  Operation Bring/Keep Your Girlfriend to/at Work is illegal. Complain if you can. In my own case I wasn't going to write thru my antagonist to NYSC as they requested. NYSC ensures the protection of the thieves. Use your own discretion.
14. Beware of your benefactor. Make sure you understand everything you have agreed to do. Put things in writing if possible.  It's possible that somebody from your yard knows somebody at your ppa. Don't get poisoned by the unknown enemy. Nigerians are desperate animals. Imagine that somebody from high school allegedly knew one of the corps members at my ppa and gave 'gist' of events to her in far away Umuahia or Port Harcourt for future or immediate reward. Paranoia is real; don't be a victim of mad Ndi Ekpere. People blame everybody else for their own problems nowadays.
15. Mind where you leave your signature. It's hard with the PPA, which could be the headquarters of forgeries. Don't forge signatures. And if it takes you to jail, don't say you didn't know the law. Learn your rights and duties in the society.
16. Beware of your look alike, semblances in name and occupation even your locality, your church are all opportunities for gross impersonation. The look alike economy is booming and becoming a multi-million naira venture. Impostors thrive in such environments like campuses and the NYSC camps and places of primary assignment sponsored by their Aristos, those sugar daddies and baby daddies. Syndicates gather only where there are criminals. Unfortunately, people are now using marriages to steal identity too - the new monster among Nigerians especially Igbo people. It's nobody's fried yam if you want to bear two names or didn't finish school for any reason at all. Nobody owes a certificate to you. Education isn't transferable except in teaching and learning nor is a certificate to be bequeathed to another person.
17. The corps is not a fundraiser. OK, enough said. Most men qt the place of primary assignment are married and have families. Corps members shouldn't be their first financial responsibility. It's not a law to befriend a married man, keep him away from his family, take up all his salaries or allowances or do with him as you wished. The gold digger gets this one. It's none of my business to tell consenting adults how to share their loot. If a married man wants to keep his mistress or prostitute around, that's his business. Again, I was not the moral compass to blow the whistle when people were misbehaving. I wouldn't envy a prostitute whose pimp was giving a jamboree.
18. Assert your civic rights; know and do your civic duties. If another corps member is breaking the law or making your life uncomfortable, alert the authorities. Go to the NYSC secretariat and submit your complaint. I don't advise you to write through your employer,  as we were told to do during my own time, especially if he doubles as a detractor. You might just be helping Nigeria to get rid of the decoy.
    
19. Don't let anybody contact your family behind your back or you could worth just N5M.
    Nigeria is nobody's personal project. People don't go to jail enough in this country for all the evil that they do. The menace of the godfather is disgusting. Some people acted like they brought their juju man to work, flaunted orders and brought their beer parlour to a picnic.
20. Beware of quick fixes also known as Akanchawa, Voodoo, witchcraft, yahoo, 419, all those belong with the NYSC and are bad for a concerned and young citizen of Nigeria.
21. NYSC isn't a career nor a life calling nor an avocation. I didn't hear nor read anywhere that I was sentenced to the NYSC verdict of Ibadan or Ile Igbon. I duly got my discharge certificate and have since severed ties with the people of AFCS, Ibadan except for asking for professional reference, which hasn't yielded any positive result for me. NYSC is not a place for praise singers to worship children of rich people. Why do people go to school nowadays? To find a rich sponsor, mentor or whatever. I don't subscribe to sycophancy and can't understand why some members of my team are still leeching on the officers, men and children of our place of primary assignment. Perhaps our orientations are different and people go where their bread is best buttered. It reflects in the whole nation - everywhere we decry the corruption at the top yet nobody cares about the rot in his/her own backyard.   
    
22. The corps is not a cooperative. It's not fraternal education, nor a confraternity. Make friends if you want to. Start businesses together. Marry each other. These things are desirable but must be mutually contracted. It's not a bet to be where another has fulfilled his or her own NYSC, state of service or place of primary assignment. No other corps member owes you a thing and it's not to be a place for malice nor blackmail. Choose your associates well.
    
23. Be patriotic. Don't agree to enslave yourself, country, or country(wo)man to a godfather, local or foreign. I didn't do that yet I'm in trouble because of lapses by the NYSC and the evil of some ignorant Nigerians. Must I be the whistle blower at every turn? Don't take bribes to do evil, O Nigerian.