December 9, 2008
How would any parent feel if a son or daughter they have trained from Kindergarten to the University for 20 years and sent to National Service to serve the fatherland is slaughtered like a goat by a band of untrained, undisciplined, uncultured and ill-mannered children who know nothing about right to life or what it takes to be a Youth Corper?
How would a parent feel when a son or daughter sent to serve the fatherland is brought back in a body bag? What explanation are you going to give them? What stories are you going to tell them? How can you console them? How would they feel about the call to service to fatherland? Will the word patriotism make any meaning to them again if the State they are willing to serve cannot protect them?
I am a father and I know what it takes to train a child from Kindergarten to the University. Though I have not lost a child of my own, I know what it means for parents to lose beloved sons or daughters. I know the pains such parents go through. I know also that some parents do not survive after such deaths. The heartbreak, the shock, the pains, the anger send some of them to untimely graves.
The deaths of three Youth Corpers Akinde Oluwaleke Olalekan, Odusola Oluwole and Akinjogbin Ibukun Oluwatosin during the recent Jos mayhem struck me like a dagger in heart and pricked my conscience as a father. My son may not have died in Jos or any other city in the North but I share with my fellow fathers the pains, agonies, sorrows, tears, anxieties, fears and regrets. I pray that the Almighty God will give them the fortitude to bear the great loss. I also sympathize with the Plateau State Government, and other families for losing their beloved ones in the unfortunate crisis.
But the death of these young men in the hands of hooligans, sons of dogs and hoodlums in Jos has once again brought to the fore the relevance of NYSC in Nigeria today. General Yakubu Gowon established the NYSC scheme in 1973 to foster unity, national cohesion and national integration in our journey to nationhood. Today, the 35 year old scheme has gone full circle and many are now questioning its continued existence arising from the inability of the establishment to live up to expectation. Unlike in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, today the would-be Corpers wait for one or two years to do the National Service. The NYSC scheme has become a conduit pipe to siphon resources meant for the Corpers welfare, and well being and consequently decay set in and coupled with lack of organization and focus, the rot went deeper.
Today NYSC stinks. Many concerned Nigerians have called for the scheme to be scrapped for convenience sake and save the nation from further embarrassment and shame. Nigerians leaders have through acts of omission or commission destroyed and completely ruined a project that was clearly designed and conceived to build bridges across the political landscapes, and construct a virile and vibrant nation.
Now, I may not join these Nigerians to call for the scrapping of NYSC but I know some States in Nigeria my children will never go to serve when the time comes in 2012. They are Kano, Sokoto, Bauchi, Zamfara, Jigawa, Maiduguri, Niger, Plateau, Kebbi, Yobe, Katsina etc, all in the North unless they put their houses in order.
Religious riots and sectarian violence have been occurring repeatedly in the North since 1945 and each time we have such mayhem non-indigenes have always been the prime targets for massacre. It happened in Jos in 1945, Kano in 1953, the entire North in 1966. In 1980, it was the turn of Maitatsine religious fanatics in Kano. In 1982 the violence visited Maiduguri with dare consequences on non-indigenes especially the Igbo. In 1984, the bloodbath was in Jimeta Yola. In 1985 the madness was in Gombe. Kaduna and Kafanchan were touched in 1987. Bauchi, Katsina, Kano got its baptism of fire in 1991, May 14 1992 was the turn of Zango- Kalf in Kaduna State. From 19 to 22 January 1993 Futua was devastated again. March/April/May 2004 Jos was totally devastated again.
The recent 2008 massacre in Jos is totally unacceptable.
We cannot just continue to live like animals. Time has come for us to do something about these barbaric and criminal acts. In 1983 when I was in third year in the University, our department went on excursion to the industrial city of Kano and today, 25 years after, Kano is in ruins. 90% of all the industries no longer exist in Kano. Reason: non indigenes are not wanted. They left the city in droves for fear of their lives. You cannot reject the instruments of development and yet expect development to come by mere wishful thinking. You cannot eat your cake and have it.
In the 21st century, no nation or state can live in isolation. We have become inter-dependent to each other for survival. And where a State cannot allow non-indigenes to live and do business, such state is a failed state. I therefore declare majority of States in the North, failed States. And unless leaders of the North move very fast to nip in the bud this ugly incidents in the North that dates back to 1945, there is no hope for this endemic backward region to rise up to join the human race.
Finally, I hope NYSC will have the courage to blacklist some States in the North and discard sending Youth Corpers to these volatile and dangerous States in Nigeria until they show Nigerians that they are civilized enough to respect the sanctity of human lives.
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