Group rejects calls to restrict NYSC posting to home state

The Igbo Heroes and Icons Foundation (IHIF) has faulted growing calls for National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members to serve only in their states of origin.

The group’s reaction followed recent remarks by the pan-Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, Afenifere, which advocated restricting corps members to their home states amid rising cases of kidnappings, road accidents and election-related violence involving serving members.

In a statement issued on Thursday in Owerri, the National Coordinator of the Igbo Heroes and Icons Foundation Chinedu Nsofor, said Afenifere’s concerns were understandable given the current security realities in the country.

He argued that confining Nigerians to their ethnic or regional boundaries would further weaken national unity.

According to him, insecurity in Nigeria has deteriorated far beyond the conditions that existed when the NYSC scheme was established after the civil war to promote national integration.

The body declared that the real solution to Nigeria’s worsening insecurity lies in competent national leadership capable of uniting the country and guaranteeing safety for all citizens.

He said: “Afenifere is not wrong in its thinking because insecurity has escalated beyond what it used to be when the founding fathers of NYSC established the scheme. Today, our roads have become death traps. People cannot travel freely without fear of being kidnapped.”

Nsofor recounted his personal experience with insecurity, revealing that he was once abducted along a highway in Kogi State despite being a prominent senatorial aspirant at the time, though he escaped without paying a ransom by an act of Divine Intervention after spending three days in the kidnappers’ den.

He said: “If someone of my status could be kidnapped on a Nigerian highway, then nobody in this country is truly safe. The primary responsibility of any government is the protection of lives and property, and failure to do that amounts to failure of leadership.”

While acknowledging the fears surrounding interstate postings for corps members, the group maintained that restricting service to home states would not align with the historic and cultural realities of the Igbo people, whom it described as one of the most nationally integrated ethnic groups in Nigeria.

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The National Coordinator noted that Igbo communities have built businesses, homes and investments across virtually every part of the country, stressing that the Igbo identity is rooted in adaptation, enterprise and coexistence.

He said: “He that travels to another man’s land has no enemy, also he quoted another Igbo adage that says “ebe onye na alu ka ona awachi,” meaning, “Wherever a person works is where he or she benefits from.”

He said these Igbo philosophies reflect the longstanding tradition of the Igbo people to settle, invest and contribute meaningfully to communities outside their ancestral homeland.

He said: “In Kano and several parts of Northern Nigeria, Igbo people have developed businesses and invested massively over decades. We do not see Nigeria through narrow ethnic boundaries. Anywhere we live becomes our home, and we protect and develop it as our own also in Lagos State the Igbos are arguably the largest investors in Lagos State-which is not our land but another man’s land.”

Hon. Chinedu Nsofor, who is also the National Coordinator of the Igbo Presidency Project, a project of the Igbo Heroes and Icons Foundation, argued that this national outlook demonstrates why an Igbo president would be best positioned to address Nigeria’s security and unity challenges.

According to him, the Igbo people possess leadership qualities that have remained largely untapped at the highest level of governance since the era of General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, who was the last Igbo man to rule Nigeria till date.

He added that the Igbo Presidency Project is not merely an ethnic campaign but a call for justice, fairness and national inclusion.

He called on Afenifere, Oduduwa, and all other ethnic nationalities across Nigeria to support the emergence of an Igbo President, adding that Igbo man has not been given the opportunity in decades to fully demonstrate these leadership qualities at the national level.

Hon. Chinedu Nsofor. National Cordinator Igbo Heroes And Icons Foundation (IHIF)