Nigerian Times

Martins chibuikem Challenges and Trials of a Nigerian NYSC Member As I held my call up National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) letter in my hand, I wondered what it would be like to finally go for youth service. Looking back at all that I have been through in school including the gruel some 2 years I had to wait to be finally mobilized for youth service, I wondered if the wait was worth it. As a graduate in Nigeria, if you don’t serve you will definitely find it hard to get job. So it is as important as your university degree it self. The National Youth Service Corps is a mandatory one year program in which graduates from different schools serve the nation for one year in a place where they will be posted. They say its voluntary but it is what we call optionally compulsory. The government has made it such that if you don’t go for service, you may not be able to find a job because every potential employer will require you to present your discharge certificate; a certificate given to you a...

The Lamentation of an NYSC Member What do we do? Is there possibility of free and fair? Every one raises an eyebrow, over what? A situation that is overlooked! I cannot help but cry for my nation. What a nation! I sleep and wake with the thought of how to make it better, free from all manners of catastrophe. But can I do it alone? How can me when even those that are supposed to lead for an onward match to sensitization and success are nowhere to be found. You deny your subjects their right, making unfulfilled promises year in year out. When can we truly realize these? I ask. Imagine a society free from social crisis. Whereby meaningful employment is made available at all levels both for graduates and non graduates. Providing food for all, especially for the poor, less privileged, handicapped and the destitute as well. A stable and reasonable transport system, Good roads maintenance, proper and effective education at all levels with sound practicability. I cannot imagine myself in an i...

There are political subjects I deliberately ignore in Nigeria, because it would be a waste of time to discuss them. The primitive nature of the so-called Chief Adedibu and the political prostitution of Patricia Etteh, are enough to show us the stock-in-trade of the notorious People's Democratic Party of Nigeria. When I read that a Nigerian bank has won an award as the best bank in Africa, I chuckle and smirk, because only fools would be impressed. To those giving kudos to the PDP led government, I feel sorry for their conceit and deceit. If you really want to know the quality of the leadership of the PDP led government, please go on tour of the NYSC Camps in Nigeria and ask yourself if any sane government in the world would subject the future leaders of the country to such inhuman conditions and reduce Nigerian graduates to the state of animals in a ranch. When I see the administrators of the National Youth Service Commission, I feel like hanging them if not to have them shot. The ...