Corruption in Boots: Why Nigeria’s NYSC Should Be Buried, Not Reformed

 

The only thing NYSC unites is confusion and corruption. It is a fat, dying cow still chewing billions while the youth it was meant to help starve. In plain English, the only thing NYSC teaches is how to survive Nigeria’s dysfunction. One year in khaki, and you graduate with PTSD, unpaid stipends, and fake national pride.

If NYSC were a patient, it would be on life support, bloated from bad management, delirious from irrelevance, and hemorrhaging any hope of revival. I’m not here to massage its ego with sentimental hymns of 1973. I’m here to yank off the oxygen mask and say the thing everyone else whispers behind closed doors—Nigeria’s National Youth Service Corps is old, fat, incompetent, and must be scrapped.

Let’s not pretend. The scheme served its purpose after the Nigerian-Biafra War. It stitched broken walls, built temporary bridges, and offered a semblance of unity when we were reeling from bullets and blood. That was fifty-one years ago. Today, it is an embarrassing antique parading in uniforms sewn with corruption, wrapped in failure, and decorated with illusion.

Look around. In August 2023, eight NYSC members were kidnapped on the Funtua-Gusau Road in Zamfara while traveling from Uyo to Sokoto. A journey meant to promote unity became a one-way trip into captivity. The last of them was rescued in August 2024—after one full year in the hands of terrorists. One year. And what did the NYSC do during that time? Release weak statements, mislead the public, and continue deploying more corps members into unsafe zones like lambs to the slaughter.

This isn't a one-off tragedy. In July 2021, five corps members died in a crash en route to camp in Katsina. In 2016, corps member Okonta Dumebi, an orphan from Delta State, was shot dead while on election duty in Rivers. His blood watered the soil of a democracy that treats youth like disposable ballots.

And let’s talk numbers. Nigeria mobilizes about 350,000 to 400,000 corps members every year. Their monthly allowance? A laughable ₦33,000 ($20.61)  until July 2024 when President Tinubu announced an upward review to ₦77,000 ($48.08). But here’s the kicker—it wasn't implemented until March 2025. That's eight months of empty promises. Worse still, some received ₦777,000 due to payment blunders, while others received nothing. And what did NYSC say? Nothing. Just another quiet Tuesday in the empire of bureaucratic silence.

This is not a national service. It is national servitude. These graduates are being tossed into regions boiling with ethnic unrest and political violence under the flag of unity. But unity cannot be forced with a khaki and a pair of jungle boots. If it could, we would have achieved it long ago. If anything, this scheme has become a scam—a costly pretense draped in patriotic colors.

Parents no longer see NYSC as a badge of honor. They see it as a threat. That’s why they bribe officials and exploit connections to influence their children's postings. Nobody wants their child posted to the North-East or North-West. Nobody wants their child turned into a statistic. If the scheme truly promotes unity, why is everyone desperately trying to escape its reach?

And let’s not forget the corruption. The NYSC Foundation, created in 1998 to offer loans to ex-corps members, has become a bottomless pit of unaccounted funds. Corps members are forced to pay ₦500 as a so-called membership fee. Most of them never receive any loans. The foundation has refused to release its financial records to the public. In over a decade, it disbursed only ₦11 million in loans despite collecting hundreds of millions from graduates. If that’s not daylight robbery in uniform, what is?

Even the process of certificate issuance has been tainted by forgery and fraud. Remember the former finance minister, Kemi Adeosun? She skipped NYSC and bought a fake exemption certificate. She only resigned when her scandal broke. That’s what the NYSC certificate has become—a document you can buy at the right price from the right official. Unity through forgery? That’s the punchline in a very tragic joke.

At the camps, the story is worse. In Calabar in 2021, female corps member Fidelia Ezeiruaku was assaulted by a female soldier, Chika Anele, over an argument about food. She was slapped repeatedly and humiliated in public while wearing her uniform. That wasn't discipline—it was abuse, a snapshot of how this scheme has turned into a circus of humiliation.

When corps members are not being beaten, they’re being rejected by institutions where they were posted. They roam towns like unwanted guests looking for any place willing to accept them. This is not service—it is punishment. A government that cannot provide jobs is forcing its graduates to beg for unpaid labor.

And what about skill acquisition? They call it SAED—Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development. But most corps members report that the training is a joke. No equipment, no real learning, just noise. A glorified seminar that teaches nothing and equips no one. If I wanted to learn how to fail at carpentry or bake imaginary cakes, I’d sign up for NYSC.

I’ve heard people say the scheme helps some youths discover themselves. That's cute. You can also discover yourself by joining a dance troupe or watching Big Brother Naija. We cannot justify a failing federal program just because a few people had good experiences.

The truth is bitter, but so is expired medicine. The NYSC is a relic of a different Nigeria. Today’s Nigeria is fractured beyond pretenses. Ethnicity drives our politics. Religion defines our identities. Nepotism poisons our institutions. And the NYSC? It’s the government’s duct tape—trying to seal a leaking dam with a ribbon.

What we need is not a ceremonial parade of disillusioned graduates. What we need is real empowerment—training programs, tech incubators, vocational hubs, and small business grants. Take the billions wasted on NYSC and build something useful. Nigeria’s youth are not khaki mannequins. They are tired, angry, brilliant minds looking for a reason to stay in this country.

But instead, we ask them to die in accidents, get kidnapped in forests, or get slapped for asking for food—all in the name of a unity that only exists in official brochures. We send them out to fix a broken country with empty pockets and broken dreams. He who sends a child to fetch fire with bare hands should not curse him when he returns with blisters.

The NYSC is a fat cow that no longer gives milk. It is chewing national funds with loud incompetence and wagging its tail in the face of danger. It should have been slaughtered years ago and turned into leather for real development.

The only thing it’s currently serving is high blood pressure to parents, confusion to graduates, and a golden opportunity for fraudsters in government uniforms.

And if anyone still believes the NYSC promotes unity in Nigeria today, they probably believe NEPA still provides light or that politicians actually mean what they say.

Some institutions retire with honor. Others stick around, collect allowances, and fart into the future. Guess which one NYSC has become.