NYSC reforms: Wrong step in the right direction

By ANTHONY KILA 

Some institutions deserve our gratitude, even when they demand our courage to change them. The National Youth Service Corps is one of them.

When the NYSC was established in 1973, Nigeria was emerging from the trauma of the civil war. The country needed more than roads and bridges; it needed trust. It needed young Nigerians from Sokoto to know Calabar, from Enugu to understand Kano, and from Lagos to experience Maiduguri. It needed a generation that would discover that beyond tribe, religion and language, a common country was waiting to be built. The NYSC was a bold answer to that moment.

Millions of Nigerians have stories of friendships formed, careers launched, businesses created, and marriages celebrated thanks to the scheme. Countless communities have benefited from the enthusiasm and expertise of young graduates posted to places they would otherwise never have visited. Whatever its shortcomings today, the NYSC has probably done more to promote national integration than many of the politicians who now speak in its name.

That history deserves respect, but history also demands honesty.

No institution should become a museum piece. Institutions exist to solve the problems of their time, not to preserve the assumptions of another age. When society changes, institutions must change with it. Nigeria in 2026 is not Nigeria in 1973. It is not even Nigeria in 2000. Information technology has advanced in the meantime. Distance has shrunk. Knowledge has become borderless. Work has become digital. Young people now collaborate across continents from their mobile phones. Security has reshaped how families think about mobility. The economy demands innovation as much as compliance, entrepreneurship as much as employment, and creativity as much as conformity.

It would be extraordinary if an institution designed for another Nigeria required no fundamental reconsideration. There is, therefore, no doubt that reforming the NYSC is the right course of action. The tragedy is that what has been presented as reform is, regrettably, a misstep in the right direction.

The easiest thing for governments to announce is reform. The hardest is to reform anything. Real reform begins by questioning assumptions before adjusting procedures. It asks not merely What should we change? but Why do we do this at all? Too often, governments improve yesterday’s answers without questioning yesterday’s questions. They modernise procedures while preserving obsolete purposes. They mistake movement for progress, activity for strategy, and revision for redesign. That is precisely what has happened here.

For months, Nigerians expected something ambitious. We expected a serious national conversation about citizenship, an honest debate about compulsory national service, and a fresh understanding of patriotism in the age of artificial intelligence, remote work and insecurity. We expected a redesign worthy of the challenges ahead; instead, the elephant gave birth to a rat.

After all the anticipation, what has emerged is largely a set of administrative adjustments masquerading as strategic transformation. Orientation camps are to be extended. Training modules are to be expanded. New structures are to be created. Yet none of these answers the fundamental question. What should national service mean in twenty-first-century Nigeria? Until that question is answered, every other reform merely rearranges the furniture.

One does not redesign aviation by repainting aircraft. One does not transform education by issuing different certificates. One does not modernise democracy by redesigning ballot papers. Likewise, one does not reinvent national service by extending orientation camps. Nigeria does not need a new NYSC. Nigeria needs the next NYSC.

Much of the public debate suffers from our conflation and confusion of three distinct institutions. Let us make some distinctions. There is the NYSC we inherited. There is the NYSC we currently operate. Then there is the NYSC Nigeria now needs. The first belonged to a country healing from war. The second belongs to a bureaucracy trying to administer yesterday’s assumptions. The third should belong to a nation preparing its young citizens for tomorrow. Confusing one for another inevitably produces shallow reforms.

Perhaps the greatest irony of the present NYSC is that an institution created to foster citizenship often begins by teaching the opposite lesson. Every year, thousands of young Nigerians begin adult life learning not about service but about manipulation. They learn whom to call. They learn who can influence postings. They learn how to avoid certain states. They learn how to secure preferred locations. Some learn to bribe. Others learn to bargain. Many learn that connections matter more than rules.

Think about that for a moment. For many university graduates, one of the first civic experiences is learning how to game a government institution. What lesson about citizenship does that teach? No meaningful reform can ignore this. If the first encounter young Nigerians have with public administration rewards influence over integrity and order, the institution is reproducing exactly the culture it should correct.

Another feature of the proposed reforms is equally troubling. They appear to assume that university graduates are an unformed group of young people who need another round of basic formation before entering society. That assumption misunderstands the purpose of higher education. Graduates are not clueless street urchins waiting for government to civilise them. They have completed demanding academic programmes, possess specialised knowledge, and are adults. A society should expect them to contribute ideas, exercise judgement, and accept responsibility. If universities are failing to produce capable graduates, then reform the universities. The NYSC should not become a remedial institution for problems it did not create. 

One of Nigeria’s recurring national weaknesses is what I have elsewhere described as opportunity blindness. We repeatedly see institutions as administrative burdens rather than as opportunities for national transformation. The debate over the NYSC illustrates this perfectly.

Instead of asking how to administer corps members more efficiently, we should ask how national service can become a platform for leadership development, entrepreneurship, innovation, community transformation and civic responsibility. One approach manages participants. The other develops citizens. The difference is between administration and strategy.

If I were redesigning the NYSC today, I would start from first principles. I would abolish compulsory participation, not because Nigeria needs less national service, but because it deserves better. Compulsion should give way to commitment. The programme should become voluntary, prestigious and highly competitive. Young Nigerians should want to participate because the experience develops them, broadens their horizons and creates opportunities for leadership. Participants should choose postings at least one hundred kilometres from their normal place of residence. The objective would remain national integration, without ignoring contemporary security realities or individual circumstances.

Training should focus on what modern citizenship requires: civic education, leadership, physical fitness, basic military preparedness, emergency response, community organisation, project management, digital competence and problem-solving. Every participant should complete a measurable community project and leave evidence of impact rather than evidence of attendance. National service should become an academy of leadership, not merely an administrative requirement.

Contrary to the current excitement about uniforms, there is nothing inherently wrong with khaki. Uniforms do not create patriotism. Purpose does. Whenever appearance dominates the discussion while purpose remains undefined, reform has already lost its way.

There is another lesson for leadership here: good reforms are not announced before they are discussed. They are discussed before they are announced. Any meaningful redesign of the NYSC should have begun with extensive consultation involving universities, employers, military officers, security experts, state governments, community leaders, former corps members, educational institutions, employers’ associations, and, above all, young Nigerians themselves. Consultation is not a bureaucratic delay. It is part of intelligent decision-making. Listening does not weaken reform. It gives reform legitimacy.

One of the central arguments in my “Crucial Cs around D” is that the quality of decisions depends less on decision-makers’ confidence than on the quality of the thinking that precedes them. Institutions fail not because leaders refuse to act, but because they act before fully understanding the problem they are trying to solve. That is the deeper concern with these reforms. They improve procedures without redefining purpose. They revise an institution without redesigning it. They update assumptions that should have been questioned first.

Every generation inherits institutions. Great generations redesign them. Nigeria need not choose between keeping the NYSC and abolishing it. That is the wrong debate. The real choice is between preserving an institution designed for yesterday and creating one conceived for tomorrow. Good leaders understand that difference. Good decision-makers insist on it. The government deserves credit for recognising that the NYSC cannot remain frozen in 1973. It deserves criticism for failing to imagine what the institution could become by 2026 and beyond.

The direction is right. The step is wrong. And Nigeria deserves better than a reform that mistakes revision for reinvention.

•Kila, Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council of the Michael and Cecilia Ibru University, is the author of “Crucial Cs Around D: The Disciplines of Decision-Making and Leadership.

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