Daily Champion
20 May 2011
editorial
More than any other single factor since its inception in 1973, the cold-blooded killing of 10 serving National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members in the post-April 2011 presidential election riots that erupted in some Northern States, has led to a groundswell of calls that the scheme be scrapped.
Many compelling arguments have been advanced for the total scrubbing of the scheme by many Nigerians, especially relations of the victims.
And they may be right. If Nigerian youths posted to serve their terms in some parts of the country are made targets of orchestrated attacks, then the argument goes that these youths should be made to serve in their native localities where they can be assured of reasonable security, failing which the programme should be discontinued.
But we beg to disagree. We think, instead, that what is needed today, more than anything else, is to provide further safeguards and review the constitutional framework to strengthen, rather than weaken the significant national-integration progress that the scheme has managed to make in the 38 years of its existence.
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