All protocols observed.
I don't know if you've gotten mails to this effect before.
I'm a corps member in the medical field & passing out soon. I just have to register my observations before leaving.
After my education here in Nigeria, I left the country for greener pastures & came back just to do my NYSC because I have future political aspirations. In the country I emigrated to, human life is valued & health matters are taken quite seriously. You don't tell your boss you're sick & you're told to stop pretending because that's a potential lawsuit in the making.
Coming back to encounter the deplorable living conditions in the NYSC camps, the unavailability of proper healthcare & how seriously ill corps members are punished for "pretending" after living in that society for a good number of years has been a real shock, to be honest.
One thing I noticed is how NYSC staff & military personnel always want to prove their toughness at the expense of the lives of other people's children. A clue: a corps member died during the three weeks camp in the state I'm serving & no one has been held liable. I see these people going on with their lives; they don't care that their actions have directly or indirectly thrown a family into mourning over the loss of their offspring. There's no lawsuit as in Nigeria "person no dey fight federal government."
I was opportune to have a conversation with one of the said staff & what I got was "they brought certificate of medical fitness." As a healthcare professional, I have to say that this proves absolutely nothing. Prospective Corp members are asked to provide a CMF when they are at optimum health & in acceptable living conditions. The living conditions at the camps are so terrible that I'm even surprised that more corpers don't end up dead. The corpers lodges I've seen in a couple of towns are perfect breeding grounds for communicable diseases. The stress of getting PPAs, documentation & clearance is enough to fell even the healthiest human being. The NYSC staff are unnecessarily harsh & some are even downright evil; even the ones who are parents & are supposed to be emphatic to other people's children. Especially the female NYSC staff; their wickedness is mind-boggling to say the least.
At the beginning of my service year, what I encountered almost broke me & I almost wanted to quit if not for a female military police who took me under her wing because I looked like her late sister & helped me considerably.
The staff are so unconcerned about one of the most basic things a corper needs: accommodation. I got a 2 bedroom apartment for myself & ended up housing more than five (5) fellow corps members; one of whom got sick due to the conditions at the corpers lodge & had to leave to save her life. The other four (4) just didn't have money to procure accommodation & were laying their head anywhere they could find at night; sleeping in church auditoriums during vigil, nightclubs & one was even sleeping in an uncompleted building at the NYSC secretariat. Scary to know that some staff knew of this & yet, they were unconcerned about it.
I see this scheme as unnecessary because a lot of establishments who request for corpers are not up to par & are not checked out before people's children are sent to work there; but at least can hygiene, living & health situations be taken more seriously?
The wickedness of these NYSC staff can go on unchecked because there has been no lawsuits from families of the deceased but that notwithstanding, can they be cautioned?
A corp member having a headache or stomachache should not be taken lightly because such supposedly commonplace ailments often have underlying causes which can lead to serious complications if not properly attended to.
The clinics at the camps & even most state medical centres are not equipped to deal with these issues so anyone with a complaint should be allowed to go home & let their families handle it.
Let's stop killing our youths recklessly all in the name of NYSC. You want to run a youth service scheme then please staff the place with kind people & make better provisions for the corpers so the scheme should not be so hazardous.

Yours' Sincerely
A concerned soon-to-be ex-corper

.......