Where you find a lot of people shouting and celebrating the completion of an endeavour, look closely, you’ll see men and women consumed in thoughts about the inevitable: What’s Next?
What’s Next should ordinarily be a question that springs up hope in the heart of man but trust me, that question in the heart of most yound Nigerians is reflected with gloom on their faces. As the 2010 Batch B set of Corps members complete the journey they started on the 6th of July last year, that question is what will be on the minds of the lot of them. In truth, they will be celebrating a sort of freedom that allows them to do and to be, to think and to evolve into men and women always in ready to serve the nation whenever called upon again. In reality, they are unleashed and unfettered into the world of predators.
They are joining the horde of Nigeria’s unemployed population. The National Youth Service scheme would have served a very useful purpose if it guaranteed just 30 per cent of these ones the jobs they handled during their service year. That will never be the case for one reason at least, virtually all the Corps members will be running to their various homes today. Those in places as far as Borno who live in Lagos for fear of their lives may not even return to their former places of abode after the Passing Out Parade (POP). Don’t be deceived by the hugs and shouts of congratulations, these are men and women scared of tomorrow.
In saner climes, having completed the process of formal education, your future is assured but not in ours where the presence of the president on a social network is counted amongst major achievements. They are literally on their own and they know it. That is why majority of them will find themselves asking some tougher questions about going clean on the society or not. They will be more impatient as the society will place the burden of success on them. They will evolve into many things, some as far as becoming responding mothers and fathers, some ending up in places where today’s choices will land them.
Whatever is the case with them, they have something and that is Life. They can Hope in the dawn of a better tomorrow. For many others, that tomorrow ended in the hands of savage men who claim to be their compatriots. They were murdered in cold blood in the pretense of election results protest. Their bloods still cry for justice on Nigeria. A nation that sets the best of its citizenry up for death will have innocent blood shed on its land. The service year was their waterloo, meeting their end in places they thought marked the gateway to a better future. The parents were thrown beggarly amounts of money as compensation, today, the tears these ones will cry will be worth the many years of toil and labour, it will be worth the future that will never come, it will be worth the hope of an expected end ended before its fulfillment.
There is yet another group who are alive but forgotten. Five of them are known, many of them are yet unknown. Five members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) serving in Rivers State remain abducted. The corps members, including four females were said to have been whisked away by gunmen somewhere at Omademe in Ikwerre Local Government Area of the state while on the way to their place of primary assignment.
The abduction occurred just as suspected hoodlums killed two policemen and wounded another in the early hours of June 8, 2011 in Port Harcourt. Sources said that the corps members were riding in a car belonging to one of them when the gunmen struck. A N100 million has been demanded by the kidnappers. As of this moment, the government has not done anything worthy of note to free them. They will not be at the parade grounds today to celebrate even their parents and relatives will be shedding tears you will not be privileged to see on TV screens and you watch Nigeria’s young people gain the access of entry to the society. The NYSC scheme has come to peak as it were, it is time for change. Something has to be done about the dangers of service. Given a chance to serve should not be a license to go to ones death and end. I wish the ones whose joy will know to bounds as they pass out today the best the world can offer. This is the beginning of another beginning. The challenges and questions of life take a different hue from here. May God help them succeed beyond these sorrow, tears and blood.
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