NYSC: A scheme battling with reforms, insecurity, relevance challenges

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Nigerians are divided over calls to scrap the National Youth Service Corps(NYSC) scheme following rising insecurity and the abduction of corps members. Some are insisting the scheme has outlived its usefulness while others argue that reforms and improved security were needed to preserve its role in promoting national unity. LADESOPE LADELOKUN reports.

When Bayo Akinyemi and his wife, Blessing, left Ondo and Benue states respectively to serve their fatherland in Plateau State, none envisaged a friendship that would later blossom into a marriage.

Yes! The couple found themselves through the NYSC scheme. Indeed, what the NYSC has joined together, no man has been able to put asunder in their 26-year-old marriage. But theirs is not a story of all roses without thorns.

Coming from different ethnic and religious backgrounds, it was a union initially rebuffed by their families until love conquered.

Today, according to Akinyemi, in an interview with Sunday Telegraph, he is happily married with two kids, stating that stories like theirs were living proof that despite all the challenges, the NYSC programme still possessed a unique magic as it brings people together who otherwise might never have crossed paths.

Sharing how their love story began, he explained: “We were posted to the same orientation camp in a state far from our home regions. We were placed in the same platoon and happened to be assigned to the camp’s parade committee together.

What started as daily early-morning drills and banter during sports hours gradually blossomed into a genuine friendship. By the time we were posted to our Primary Places of Assignment (PPA) in the state capital, we had become virtually inseparable.

“Coming from entirely different ethnic and religious backgrounds, our families initially had reservations. But the year spent serving together allowed us to build a deep bond of mutual respect, trust, and understanding that transcended those differences.

the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) to hundreds of Yoruba Nation nationalist groups, the cries for the dismemberment of Nigeria, Sunday Telegraph observes, still rent the air.

This is even as the recent abduction of 20 NYSC members by armed men along Owerri-Onitsha Expressway in Imo State on October 1,2026, triggered fresh calls for the scrapping of the scheme. Prominent among Nigerians calling for the scrapping of the scheme is the African Action Congress(AAC) presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, who argued that the scheme has outlived its usefulness.

“The NYSC should be suspended immediately and ultimately scrapped. In the meantime, all corps members should be given the option to serve within their states of origin.”

Meanwhile, like the Akinyemis, testimonies abound about how the scheme has promoted unity across tribes amid security concerns triggered by abductions and killings.

Nigerians speak

Sharing his thoughts, sociologist, Dr John Etim, dismissed the argument that the scheme has outlived its usefulness, stating that rather than scrapping it, it should be reformed. “I follow the debate closely, and I completely understand where both sides are coming from.

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