The evening meal is usually a time of reunion for members of the Sodipo family who employ it to compare notes and offer mutual consolation to one another about the triumphs, setbacks, and occasionally, harrowing occurrences that transpire in the course of the day.On this particular evening last week however, a hush fell on the family as they gathered around the dinner-table and one of their daughters, Damilola announced that she had been assigned by the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) to serve in Zamfara State. A casual glance at Damilola's crest-fallen face revealed that the 21-year-old graduate of a private university in Ogun State had sobbed for a while with her brow contorted with the anguish of someone who had just been sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour. As may be expected, the rambling and desultory conversation at the dinner-table that evening centred on possible scenarios for avoiding what that family considered to be a harsh deployment to what is fast becoming for youth corpers the killing fields of Northern Nigeria.States and organisations may tide over tragedy without serious loss of composure; for families and individuals, tragedies, the sudden death of loved ones for example, have a raw, intimate, and decentring touch. Hence, it is one thing for NYSC officials to make grave side orations concerning the killing by unidentified hoodlums of 11 youth corpers in the aftermath of the last elections and then return to their duty posts. It is another matter, however, when those decapitated or burnt alive are one's relations or offsprings. The Yorubas say Were dun woo, ko se bi l'omo which translates it is easy, even entertaining to observe a mad person in a market place; it is altogether a different matter however if the mad person is one's offspring. All of which brings us to the issue recently heavily debated, but not satisfactorily resolved of the logic behind sending young impressionable and tender Nigerians to the horrible uncertainties currently prevailing in many northern states.For whether you like it or not, this tentative nation of ours, recently described by one writer as a mere cartographic entity (cartography is a branch of Geography dealing with Maps) is on tenterhooks. What further evidence do we need of our present predicament than the sadly picturesque sight of the United States envoy and the Governor of our Central Bank scampering out in utter disarray from Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja last week in the wake of a rumoured attack by Boko Haram insurgents which mercifully turned out to be false' And so, if those who are fortified by security infrastructure are driven to the level of panic we are currently witnessing, why do we expect young graduates of Southern Nigerian origin to congratulate their government for being discerning enough to ask them to spend an apprehension filled year in Northern Nigeria of today' As the debate raged some months back concerning the future of the NYSC with some suggesting that the scheme be modified to take accounts of the current mounting peril, I looked in vain for a Nigerian leader who would tell the nation that his own son or daughter is currently serving in one of those states considered to be hazardous. In climes where leaders lead by examples and not by buzz words or empty sloganeering, the leadership would have clinched the argument for the retention of the scheme on latest terms by demonstrating that they are prepared to allow their wards to be posted to any of the Northern states-excluding of course, the two states currently exempted by the NYSC authorities.In other words, if the political leadership would do everything in their power to ensure that their sons and daughters are not gravely put to risk in the course of their NYSC assignment, then what moral justification does this nation have for not proactively protecting these young ones from the on-going blight' This reminds me of a heated argument I had with a friend on the NYSC issue and his insistence that the programme should be upheld more or less as it currently exists. My friend subsided however when I reminded him that he had smartly arranged to have his daughter redeployed from Sokoto to Ogun State in order not to have too many prayer points as a father and an evangelist. In The Social Contract, Rosseau had argued that citizens were free to disobey oppressive and unjust governments. The Fedral Government is certainly not an oppressive or an unjust one even if it cannot be credited with far-sightedness and imagination. Yet, the awkward and untidy situation created by its insistence that young Nigerians from southern states be compelled to serve in the north may unwittingly result in a situation where those who have the power will get their wards redeployed appropriately while parents who lack such access are constrained to choose between surrendering their wards to clearly inhospitable auspices, or protectively asking them not to take any such risk and face the consequences. It may also, Nigerians being who they are; create a thriving illicit market in fake NYSC certificates. In other words, the question announces itself and screams for an answer: Why must a State push its own citizens to the brink of desperation, lawlessness, or wrongdoing' Will it not have been much easier as was suggested to have asked graduates to be deployed within the safety of their own nativities or not so far away from them'Lest I am misunderstood, let me clarify that I memorably enjoyed my NYSC year in Niger State, but in a season when Nigeria was not careering catastrophically out of the decencies of life, and when human life was not this atrociously cheap. Needless to say, there has been a sea change since then and the times are out of joint. The least we can do is to restructure the NYSC and not sacrifice anymore young lives to the conundrums of a fractured nation and its murderous insurgencies.
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