NYSC: Serving Nigeria at what cost?

It takes a lot of courage to travel on Nigerian roads these days. Preparations for such trips take different forms, depending on the faith of the travellers. Some endlessly recite Psalms 91 and 121, Qur’anic verses such as Ayat al-Kursi, Surah Al-Falaq, and Surah An-Nas, or traditional incantations before embarking on such journeys.

The fear is not necessarily about accidents. It is about the lords of the jungle who lurk around, waiting to abduct travellers in return for huge ransoms.

It is even worse when such journeys involve young people. Their parents and guardians remain restless until they can confirm they have reached their destinations without any ugly incident along the way.

 This was exactly the situation on October 1, the nation’s Independence Day, when young graduates left Ibadan, Oyo State, in commercial buses for their National Youth Service Corps orientation camps in Abia and Akwa Ibom states. Instead of arriving at their orientation camps, their journey ended in the hands of kidnappers around Umunoha on the Owerri-Onitsha Road in Imo State.

There have been conflicting accounts about the precise number abducted, but parents maintain that 20 prospective corps members remain in captivity. The kidnappers initially demanded N50m per victim, but families now say the demand has been reduced to N5m each. They left home to serve Nigeria. Their parents are now being asked to pay millions of naira to get them back home.

 If these young people had been kidnapped on their way to clubhouses, parties or while travelling for tourism, there is every tendency that some people would blame them. But in this case, they were responding to their mobilisation for national service.

 The NYSC system can post a graduate from Oyo to Akwa Ibom, from Lagos to Sokoto, from Enugu to Borno or from Rivers to Katsina. The graduate is expected to report. The question, therefore, is: if the state requires a young Nigerian to travel hundreds of kilometres to fulfill a national obligation, what responsibility does that state assume for the person’s safety?

 So far, the authorities have responded swiftly to the matter. The Inspector-General of Police, Olatunji Disu, deployed senior officers to Imo, while police and military personnel have been working on the rescue operation. Police say drones helped them locate the suspected kidnappers’ camp, but intelligence suggested that the location had been mined with improvised explosive devices, complicating an immediate assault. The Oyo and Imo state governments have also said they are collaborating with security agencies to secure the victims’ release.

 I am, therefore, not saying the government is doing nothing. My concern is why we must repeatedly wait until young Nigerians are kidnapped before mobilising enormous security resources to save them. Prevention should be as important as rescue.

This is not the first time something like this has happened. Just 36 days earlier, 15 prospective corps members travelling from Bayelsa to Abuja were kidnapped along the Aloma-Egane Expressway in Kogi State.

Security forces later rescued them. There have been other cases involving corps members in 2026 and previous years. How many corps members must be kidnapped before NYSC travel security fundamentally changes? A recurring pattern suggests that the problem can no longer be treated as an unpredictable, one-off event.

 NYSC was designed for a different Nigeria. The scheme was established in 1973, shortly after the Civil War, principally to promote national unity, reconciliation and integration. Its philosophy was powerful: send young Nigerians outside their familiar ethnic, cultural and geographical environments. More than five decades later, that objective remains valuable, but the security environment has changed dramatically.

The designers of NYSC could hardly have envisaged a Nigeria where graduates travelling between states might encounter kidnapping gangs demanding millions of naira. The issue, therefore, is not necessarily whether NYSC has outlived its usefulness. It is whether the scheme has failed to evolve with Nigeria’s security realities.

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 Should NYSC still send young people anywhere in the country? It is a tough question. If NYSC stops interstate postings because of insecurity, one of the fundamental purposes of the scheme which is national integration, will be weakened. If it continues sending young people across the country without adequate safeguards, parents will understandably ask why their children should be exposed to avoidable risks.

 A country cannot surrender territory to criminals by declaring entire regions inaccessible. But young graduates should not become instruments for demonstrating that the government controls its territory. National integration cannot require unnecessary exposure to danger.

 The biggest weakness may be the journey itself. Once a prospective corps member receives a call-up letter, he or she often gets to camp by ordinary commercial transportation. A graduate posted hundreds of kilometres away searches for a bus going in that direction, boards it and hopes to arrive safely. Why should a national programme involving the predictable mass movement of thousands of young Nigerians leave transportation almost entirely to individual corps members?

 I think the creation of NYSC-secured transportation corridors should be considered. Imagine designated departure points in Lagos, Ibadan, Abuja, Enugu, Kano, Benin, Port Harcourt and other major centres during mobilisation periods. Prospective corps members travelling towards particular regions could assemble there, with accredited buses conveying them directly to orientation camps. Security escorts could be provided on identified high-risk stretches rather than necessarily accompanying every bus across the entire country.

 Security assessment should also become integral to mobilisation. NYSC and security agencies should maintain a constantly updated map of safe routes, high-risk roads, kidnapping hotspots and communities experiencing active security threats. If a route becomes dangerously insecure shortly before mobilisation, postings or travel arrangements should be adjusted accordingly.

 The latest kidnapping has already revived the debate over whether NYSC should be scrapped. Arguments for scrapping the scheme include security risks, questions about whether compulsory interstate service remains necessary, poor welfare, low allowances relative to living costs and doubts about whether NYSC still achieves its integration objectives.

 But there is another side. For millions of Nigerians, NYSC has provided their first meaningful experience outside their home regions, sometimes resulting in lifelong friendships and even marriages. It has exposed young Nigerians to cultures, languages and communities they might otherwise never have encountered.

 For me, the latest kidnapping does not necessarily prove that NYSC should die. It proves that NYSC cannot continue operating as though Nigeria’s security environment has not changed since 1973.

 Of course, kidnapping is not an NYSC problem; it is a Nigerian problem. Commercial drivers, farmers, schoolchildren and even traditional rulers are being kidnapped. The plight of these prospective corps members merely reminds us of the absurdity of asking young citizens to perform compulsory national service in an environment where the state cannot reliably secure major highways. NYSC reform must, therefore, not substitute for the larger task of defeating kidnapping.

 For now, every reasonable resource should be deployed to bring the abducted graduates home alive. Afterward, the government should seriously review NYSC travel arrangements.

 National service should involve sacrifice, but that sacrifice should never include gambling with one’s life. If Nigeria insists that its young graduates must leave their homes and travel across the country to serve, then Nigeria must do much more to ensure that they arrive alive, serve safely and return safely to their families.

 The Imo kidnapping should trigger more than another rescue operation. It should force a fundamental review of how NYSC moves and protects young Nigerians in an age of widespread kidnapping. The scheme’s national-integration objective remains defensible, but a compulsory national programme carries a corresponding obligation to minimise foreseeable risks to those compelled to participate.