Mr. Sunday Dare, the Minister of Sports and Youth Development is too quick to chaff at the idea of rolling the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme back.
The idea to call time on the NYSC thing was rightly being sponsored by a duly elected member of the National Assembly (NASS). Presidents basically direct the affairs of a country when they are in office but it is the congress (that is, the NASS) that sets rules and makes laws and amendments in the best interest of the people.
It is not a desirable thing that in the Presidency, the line is blurred between the appointed cabinet members and the plethora of staffers who run Government House of Muhammadu Buhari think they are an infallible entity that can put a final closure on the deliberations at the National Assembly that has passed the first-read sequence.
There was this haughty feeling to everything that Mr. Dare said about not rolling back the NYSC scheme that you sensed he believed by just blowing hot on behalf of the “Presidency,” the lawmakers at NASS should do well and withdraw their deliberations.
Now, in all honesty, of what purpose is the NYSC? Recall that Gov. Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State recently blasted female NYSC participants from the South of Nigeria and tagged them “prostitutes” who do no good during their service year but roam the streets of the towns of northern Nigeria in search of “patrons.” Any discerning Nigerian should understand that Gov. El-Rufai spoke for the North and basically summed the feelings of the North towards this scheme.
Again, is there any adult Nigerian out there who has not heard that there exists a clause in the NYSC set-up (may not be necessarily written) that seeks to “protect” the “innocence and purity” of female Muslim northern Nigerian graduates from the “wild other-parts of Nigeria” by ensuring that these “sisters” who are “wife-materials” do their service commitments at their places of choice, especially their hometowns?
Many may not be aware of it, but in Niger State civil service administration set-up, female corps members from the South-East especially, are in “hot demand,” not for any intellectual or social-work activity they may render, but for their “yellow and big backsides,” according to the sick jokes making the rounds at the end of any orientation camp session. Civil servants fall over themselves to “oil the route” that ensures “constant flows” of these “vixens” to different government agencies whence horny ones happily “divvy them up” amongst themselves, pay for some run-down accommodation in town, buy some cheap mattress and kitchen utensils, and then lay claim to a “mistress” for the next eight months or so. Is this what the NYSC idea is all about?
Just check out this fact: though it is not so obvious for all to see and draw conclusion about, If a national scheme is broken, it is the responsibility of the National Assembly to fix it up. If NASS fails in its primary responsibility, then the body politic will be distressed. If NASS allows itself to be bullied by a discordant and dysfunctional presidency, then the principle of check-and balance and the idea of separation of powers become meaningless.
Sunday Adole Jonah, Niger State.
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