OwoTobi

There is an uncomfortable contradiction in the NYSC scheme that deserves a national conversation. The South West is arguably the region with the greatest concentration of employment opportunities for graduates in Nigeria. Yet, under the NYSC scheme, many graduates who are originally from this region are posted to other parts of the country, while graduates from those regions are posted to the South West. Think about what happens next. A graduate from the South West is sent to a region with fewer employment opportunities. Meanwhile, someone from another region arrives in the South West and gets access to the very opportunities the Yoruba graduate has been displaced from. They fill graduate intern positions, take up available roles and build professional networks in an environment with a much larger pool of opportunities. Then the service year ends. The Yoruba graduate returns home to compete for whatever jobs are left. If they fail to secure employment, some of the same people who benefited from the opportunities they left behind are quick to describe them as lazy, entitled or unwilling to work. How is this justice? Yoruba graduates are not asking for preferential treatment. They are asking why a scheme supposedly designed to promote national unity should require them to bear such a disproportionate opportunity cost. One Nigeria should not mean sacrificing the opportunities of one region to make opportunities available to others. The NYSC scheme needs serious reform. National unity should be built on fairness, not a system that leaves some young Nigerians paying a heavier price than others.