IT is not unlikely that the Minister of Youth
Development, Alhaji Inuwa Abdulkadir,
perceives himself, self-righteously, as the
quintessential super patriot. His curious and
rather perverse definition of patriotism is,
unfortunately, one in which unarmed youths
without military training whatsoever are sent
recklessly, in the name of national service, to be
killed or maimed in violence-infested areas of the
country where trained and fully armed military
outfits have been struggling in futility to restore
normalcy.
If Abdulkadir had not expressed himself so
earnestly, passionately and with apparent strong
conviction on the issue, we would have believed
he was only speaking tongue-in-cheek and trying
to make light of a truly tragic situation.
Obviously piqued at the approval by the
management of the National Youth Service Corps
(NYSC) of the re-deployment of youth corps
members from hotbeds of violent insurgency like
Borno and Yobe states, to the considerably more
peaceful Benue and Nasarawa states, the minister
moved swiftly to overrule the decision.
Addressing a press conference in Abuja, the
minister said the law establishing the NYSC had
to be strictly complied with and, as such, corps
members can only be re-deployed from states to
which they have been posted on marital or health
grounds. Giving the impression that Nigerians
are made for the NYSC law and not vice versa,
Abdulkadir stated emphatically that the affected
corps members must serve wherever they are
posted, irrespective of the level of insecurity.
Shedding further light on the rationale for this
inexplicable decision that flies in the face of
sound logic and common sense, the minister
drew disturbing inspiration from the country’s
tragic civil war.
In his chilling words: “Don’t forget that a number
of people went to the civil war; a number of
Nigerians went to the war front. They were
killed, they left families. There are people who up
till now, for no fault of theirs because by
circumstances they were born during the period
of the war…they got incapacitated.
They are living with those disabilities because of the war.
This is a sacrifice to the nation”.
Unsurprisingly, there has been strong public
disapproval of the absolutely bizarre and
insensitive view of a member of the highest
decision-making organ of a government that has
failed so signally in its primary responsibility of
maintaining security of lives and property across
the country.
The minister’s warped view is that
highly trained Nigerian youth must willingly
offer themselves as disposable cannon fodder
and bear the brunt for the sheer incompetence
and mediocrity of a dysfunctional Nigerian State.
Of course, Abdulkadir’s absurd effusions have
been condemned and dismissed by a cross-
section of Nigerians. For instance, in a recent
strongly worded statement, the Afenifere
Renewal Group (ARG), a pressure group in the
South-West, advised parents against releasing
their children to undertake national service in
those parts of the North where violence
currently prevails.
It is certainly difficult to fault
the ARG’s contention that “As things are today,
we have reached a point in the South West where
we can no longer accept the wastage of our
expensively trained and hard-earned human
lives on the altar of Nigerian integration that is
not working…”.
The minister is clearly deluded if he thinks his
hard line stance will force parents to endanger
the lives of their children in the way he so
flippantly suggested. The reality is that the NYSC
law has become clearly anachronistic in the light
of current realities.
It is unfortunate that Abdulkadir showed so little compassion for those families that have lost loved ones to
mindless violence. This is most unbecoming of a public officer in his exalted position.
