NYSC, N4,000 and the criminal
exploitation of the vulnerable By Emmanuel onwe

To paraphrase the immortal words of the oath
of the ancient musketeers: this world is an
uncertain realm filled with danger. Honour is
undermined by the pursuit of rotten lucre. In
today’s Nigeria, the prize for being vulnerable,
weak and helpless are oppression, deprivation,
extortion and deliberate trampling by the
powerful, the rich and the politically
connected. But there are those who oppose
these powerful forces; those who dedicate
their lives to truth, honour and freedom.
I am proud to come from this constituency of
brave and forthright citizens who will not
stand silent whilst the powerless are
degraded, exploited and ultimately crushed.
On March 15, 2014, a particular strain of
scandal married to tragedy erupted over the
employment test for recruitment into the
Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) conducted
across the country. The Immigration service is
a government department under the Ministry
of Internal Affairs. The narrative of the scandal
is simple but devastating. About 6.5 million
jobless young Nigerians had been made to pay
an application fee of N1,000 each for only
4,000 vacancies. The tragedy followed a
pattern that has become a typical Nigerian
signature.
Tens of thousands of jobseekers turned up at
designated centres in Abuja, Port Harcourt,
Minna, Gombe and Benin. There were
stampedes at the National Stadium, Abuja,
Liberation Stadium, Port Harcourt, and in
Minna. About 16 innocent, hungry, tired but
hopeful young Nigerian souls perished. Scores
were injured. The culpable criminals got away
with it because they are rich and politically
connected. The brutalised and traumatised
youth leaked their wounds, out of pocket and
still out of work. It stinks but our noses have
become stuffed with indifference. A couple of
years ago, the Nigerian people were informed
by news reports that a staggering amount of
N33 billion had been stolen from the Police
Pensions Fund.
A comical series of investigations, hearings
and committees to analyse and report on the
investigations and hearings ensued.
Somewhere down the line, this joke that
parades in Nigeria as a legal process swung,
or, rather, limped into action. Some nonentity
was convicted and offered the option of
paying a fine in the breathtaking sum of
N250,000. Another mega-nonentity deployed
dozens of armed policemen as a shield
against police investigations into the
embezzlement of funds meant to aid their
erstwhile colleagues as they languished on the
breadline waiting for the cold embrace of the
grave.
The raucous noise that emanated from civil
society soon died down. The oppression of the
vulnerable continued unhindered in many other
sectors of society. These examples typify the
horror that awaits you if you ever find yourself
in any of the vulnerable constituencies in the
Nigerian republic. Everyone hired and paid
from public funds to protect your interests,
defend your rights, and guarantee your
wretched subsistence will deploy the full
powers of his office to oppress you, cheat you,
steal from you and finally shuffle your bones
into a premature grave.
A few days ago, it came to public notice that
another vulnerable constituency, the Nigerian
youth, are being stolen from, being cheated,
being oppressed and their painful existence
being exacerbated. The National Youth Service
Corps (NYSC) remains a beacon of national
unity – yes, with grave but certainly
surmountable challenges. Our sons and
daughters have continued to pay a terrible
prize, sometimes in blood, in the line of duty
to the Corps. But the patriotism of the youth
has once again been rewarded with wicked
exploitation and total lack of compassion. The
Director, Corps Mobilisation, Anthony Ani,
disclosed in a radio programme recently that
corps members will now pay N4, 000 to
download their call-up letters online.
This is an outrage! N4,000 to travel, at cost,
to an internet cafe, log into some website and
download a letter informing you that you are
obligated to render a full year’s service,
possibly in a very dangerous environment,
while subsisting on a paltry stipend, to your
country? Our public servants not only appear
to thrive on wickedness, they appear to be a
select band of sadistic psychopaths, utterly
bereft of any form of consideration for the
circumstances of others. Now, consider this:
the mischief for which the imposition of the
fee of N4,000 was meant to cure, according to
Mr. Ani’s explanation, was that “the N4, 000
online registration fee was introduced so as to
stop fresh graduates from travelling back to
their various schools to pick up the letters.”
As far as explanations go, this one takes the
trophy for galactic stupidity.
Simple email, the administration cost of which
should already be captured in the
organisation’s budget, is a perfect solution.
Domestic text messages cost N4 and, for
students domiciled abroad, it will cost no
more than N15 for the call-up notification.
This is not a study or a thesis on the efficient
running of the NYSC to avoid imposing
unacceptable measures and costs on the
hapless corps members. But you get my drift
– a tiny measure of quickness of mind will
deliver the required service at insignificant
cost to the Corps.
Nigerians should stand up and call this
nonsense out for what it is – a bald faced
criminal extortion of our jobless young. The
current system which compels graduates to
collect their call-up letters from their alma
mater is bereft of imagination. But what is
truly depressing about the entire deplorable
affair is that the initiators and executors of the
scam know it to be such – an imagination-
free scheme designed to defraud but pursued,
nonetheless, with the full knowledge that the
vulnerable in Nigeria are too easily and
profitably exploited and adverse consequences
seldom, if ever, follow. “The abuse of greatness
is when it disjoins remorse from power” –
William Shakespeare.
In other words, Nigerians in positions of
authority abuse and pervert their power when
they separate it from compassion and
decency. If the Nigerian youth were the
products of the harsh conditions of existence
bequeathed and enforced upon them, they
would today be grease-soaked rags strewn on
the roadsides – useless, inconvenient
eyesores. But they are not. They thrive and
soldier on in spite of the indignities,
carelessness and disregard which stand as
their only inheritance. Where Nigerian senior
citizens are the villains, the youth are the
heroes.
If you inquired carefully into the status and
background of the decision makers who derive
pleasure in enacting punitive policies against
young people, you will find that they belong to
the generation that enjoyed free education,
had jobs, accommodation and cars thrust on
them upon graduation from universities. They
are now marshalling the resources and
capacities of a Nigeria that was so good to
them to undermine and destroy the generation
that will take all our hopes and aspirations as
a nation forward. The younger generation are
poorly educated not because of their inherent
inadequacies but because of the grossly
inadequate system of education that the
privileged generation has put in place.
Today, the graduates who paid their own way
through university education outnumber by far
those who relied on contributions from any
other source. There are no jobs for our young
because the older generation has delivered
two devastating blows to the system; one is
by stealing all that can be stolen from the
common coffers and the other is a tragic lack
of a sense of intergenerational altruism.
Having stolen everything, they have now
devised a means of sinking their paws directly
into the pockets of young people. Let’s
amputate those goddamn greasy paws.w

mercielizzie:
Barka De sallah to u all!! + Any unilorite in d aose?

present #teamUNILORIN #bbf

I hail all prospective C14 corps members. D count down is slow bt steady. Coal corpers will be glad to welcome most of u in Enugu

SageNaruto:
present #teamUNILORIN #bbf

. D pic isn't clear. Pls wot date is for faculty of science? And ao much is d fee?

sodiqyinka:

Lol... Abeg pardon am Sir. Hehehe

mercielizzie:
. D pic isn't clear. Pls wot date is for faculty of science? And ao much is d fee?

physical science?

mercielizzie:
. D pic isn't clear. Pls wot date is for faculty of science? And ao much is d fee?

art, edu, law, management sci, and social sci are on d 22nd....
Agric, engineering and tech, BMS, clinical sci, CIS, life sci, physical sci, and post grad degree n diploma on d 23rd...
Haven't heard anytyn abt d fees yet.

dania30:

Ewo! Aunty Lizzy u speak in parables

U understand abegi....anyways just saying u forget me patapata. Ow u dey

sodiqyinka:

Wetin be your own nah...hey, where we de block tonight?

We go knw on monday bro. Agbelere

SageNaruto:

art, edu, law, management sci, and social sci are on d 22nd....
Agric, engineering and tech, BMS, clinical sci, CIS, life sci, physical sci, and post grad degree n diploma on d 23rd...
Haven't heard anytyn abt d fees yet.

Heineken:
. 4get ke lizzy. No worry jor

Patiently waiting

SageNaruto:
present #teamUNILORIN #bbf

Good news...how much we de pay for gown?

This I̶̲̥̅̊s̶̲̥̅̊ for my fellow Muslim brothers...Nordean, sodiq, Holawhumy, e.t.c
...Eid ul Adha is an Eid of sacrifice; And commitment of Allah’s orders. May Allah bless us with the same in all circles of life, and help all amongst us, who are helpless, worried and waiting for his rehmat Eid Mubarak!
And to all my Christian brothers and sisters may God bless U nd provide for all ϔ☺Ůȑ nids in Jesus name. Have a blessed nd fulfiln wknd.

sodiqyinka:

. Sodiq you be crazy guy I swear.

sdot4:
when did u finish ?? finished from CS

Sdot I see ya! *doffs hat* grt Josite

omolizzy:


U understand abegi....anyways just saying u forget me patapata. Ow u dey

Ha! No vex...I no forget u o. hw I go forget u sef? I bold? Abeg no vex for me

dania30:

Ha! No vex...I no forget u o. hw I go forget u sef? I bold? Abeg no vex for me

Beta o if not I go say make dem post u come kano here or yobe

omolizzy:



Beta o if not I go say make dem post u come kano here or yobe

Hehehehe. Biko na only me my mama born

dania30:

Hehehehe. Biko na only me my mama born

Lie lie I know say you be the last of them 7 children

dania30:

Hehehehe. Biko na only me my mama born

Toh..no wahala u go serve for akwaibom

kalushaiyke:

Lie lie I know say you be the last of them 7 children

Who call u inside this matter eTafia

omolizzy:

Toh..no wahala u go serve for akwaibom

Osheee!

Viewing this topic: melucynk
Akinife kalushaiyke
wordsplay, fujirice, horlajide,
Beboy23, shootsight
Claroo, sodiqyinka...........how sallah for una side??

noordean:
wch kind std u wan b?? u wan reciev lecture on eid day?? keep ur pen n jotter for some oda time

taiye taiwo,Note dis please* sir nuru, y u no pick u call yesterday evening na?

curiouses:
Wetin be your own nah...hey, where we de block tonight?

Festac Town.

Heineken:
. Sodiq you be crazy guy I swear.

Akerry:
Viewing this topic: melucynk
Akinife kalushaiyke
wordsplay, fujirice, horlajide,
Beboy23, shootsight
Claroo, sodiqyinka...........how sallah for una side??

Steady

Akerry:
Viewing this topic: melucynk
Akinife kalushaiyke
wordsplay, fujirice, horlajide,
Beboy23, shootsight
Claroo, sodiqyinka...........how sallah for una side??

Sallah dey lowkey 4 here,dem thief our Ram dis mornin

Claroo:

Sallah dey lowkey 4 here,dem thief our Ram dis mornin

Akerry:
Viewing this topic: melucynk
Akinife kalushaiyke
wordsplay, fujirice, horlajide,
Beboy23, shootsight
Claroo, sodiqyinka...........how sallah for una side??

Asaba just dry,the muslim are not loyal ooo,them no even they throwway bone here at all ni

mimiy05:

and that is?

. We share thesame name don't we?