By BOLA BOLAWOLE
Last Thursday’s kidnapping of two bus-loads of NYSC (National Youth Service Corps) members said to be travelling from Ibadan, the Oyo state capital, to locations in Imo and Akwa Ibom states raised many troubling questions, one of which is the continued relevance, if any, of the NYSC scheme. I have asked that question before and it bears repeating again, but we shall soon return to that.
If the kidnapped fellows were travelling from Ibadan, the likelihood is that a sizable number of them could be from Oyo and the adjourning south-west states, So, I expect the governors of those states to take direct interest in the plight of the kidnapped persons. There is nothing that says that some of the kidnapped persons cannot also come from any other state of the federation. So, this security breach, apart from being one too many, should be treated as a problem that concerns all of us, and not a matter to be left for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu alone to handle.
Whether or not they control the police/military, let the governors concerned do something that is within their capacity and capabilities. Kind words, words of encouragement, and reaching out to traumatised families will go a long way. It can help soothe frayed nerves and give encouragement to the distraught.
Again, controversy surrounds the actual number of those kidnapped: 19 or 20? Even if it is a single soul, it is still very important. Jesus Christ told us of the good shepherd who left the secured 99 sheep to go seek, search and rescue a lost sheep. There is also a question mark over the police statement that 10 kidnapped persons were rescued by them; counter-claims said the 10 persons actually escaped on their own. They reportedly ran into the bush when the kidnappers surfaced. Thank God they escaped unhurt!
More troubling, however, is the way the police have handled the information flow arising from the unfortunate event. I could not believe the unprofessional manner in which supposedly responsible senior police officers handled information concerning the kidnap incident! And I could not help querying what kind of training they got – and what they still retain in their head – about intelligence and the sensitivity of information sharing on security matters.
A senior police officer was quoted as saying that the kidnappers’ camp has been located but that rescue efforts were constrained because of the threat of IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices). The simple word for IED is “bomb” or “explosives.” He was also quoted as revealing all the logistics the police deployed: how they ran drones; moved in and moved out with drones; how they are preparing to move bulldozers and APCs (Armoured Personnel Carriers) to the kidnappers’ hide-out! Haba!
Not done yet, this very senior police officer, a Commissioner of Police for that matter, then revealed what incapacitated them and the rescue efforts when he disclosed that “our predicament is that with the intel (intelligence report) we have, the camp is mined with IEDs.” What manner of a police officer is this, who reveals both the strength and weaknesses of an ongoing security operation just like that? And in the media of all places?
Will the terrorists themselves, their sponsors and sympathizers not listen and act on such sensitive security information? Is this police officer, deliberately or inadvertently, doing the sensitive job of intelligence gathering for the terrorists? This calls for sober reflection on the quality of men we have put in charge of our security as well as the quality of training we give them.
If some police officers are this daft, shouldn’t we the media know better? We should know which stories to print and which to leave out, even if the Cannery chooses to sing. Selling news spaces and making money is not as important as the safe return of our kidnapped brothers and sisters.
Now let us return to the continued relevance of the NYSC, which was established, on May 22, 1973, with the promulgation of Decree No 24 of the same year by the then military Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon. The NYSC’s declared objectives were to promote national unity, reconciliation, and reconstruction in the aftermath of the Nigerian civil war of 1967 – 1970, in which more than two million lives were said to have been lost on both sides of the hostilities, one of them being my cousin, Bro. Fasasi, from Ipele-Owo in present-day Ondo state of Nigeria.
The cause (s) of that unfortunate war need not detain us here. Was it the Major Kaduna Nzeogwu-led sectional but abortive military coup of January 15, 1966? Or the Unification Decree (Igbo-nization policies, to some) of the Gen. JTU Aguiyi-Ironsi military regime that was short-lived? Could it be the counter-coup of July 1966 and the pogrom (the killing of Igbos in the North) and the subsequent declaration of secession and the birth of the Republic of Biafra by the then Col. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu on May 30, 1967? Opinion is divided on these and many other related issues.
What is well known, however, is that civil war was fought between Nigeria and the fledgling state of Biafra. What Gowon had described as a mere “police action” lasted two-and-half years – a gruelling civil war fought on the battlefield, in the minds of men and women as well as in many foreign capitals of the world, with some pitching their tent here and the others there. As Ojukwu fled the battlefield ostensibly “in search of peace”, as he euphemistically described his surrender, the instruments of surrender were formally executed by his deputy, Philip Effiong, first on the battlefield on January 12, 1970, and later officially at Dodan Barracks on January 15, 1970.
Accepting the surrender, Gowon declared a policy of “No Victor, No Vanquished”, which many have described as unprecedented in history. Usually, crippling conditions and heavy reparations are exacted on the losing side after battles and wars are won and lost. The Nigerian civil war was different.
Not only that, the Gowon administration, in which the late sage and political leader of the Yoruba, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, was the vice-chairman and Federal Commissioner (now Minister ) of Finance, embarked upon a policy known as the 3Rs – Reconciliation, Rehabilitation, and Reconstruction. Reconciliation focused on healing the wounds of the war, granting general amnesty and reintegrating former Biafran citizens into the Nigerian federation. Rehabilitation focused at providing immediate humanitarian relief, medical care, and food supplies to displaced ex-Biafrans and starving populations, especially children. Reconstruction focused on the repair and rebuilding of physical structures such as roads, bridges, electricity and health facilities, among others, in the war-ravaged Biafran enclave.
Ex-Biafrans encountered problems in certain parts of the country where the properties they left behind were treated as “abandoned properties” and were taken over by others. Incidentally, this happened significantly in Port-Harcourt among the Ikwerres that some insist are also Igbo! But in the south-west, the Igbo were welcomed back into Nigeria with open hands. Their properties were returned to them, and many of them were magnanimously helped to pick up the bits and pieces of their life again.
The Gowon administration also implemented the policy of giving Igbos a flat amount of 20 Nigerian pounds in exchange for whatever amount of Biafran currency was in their possession. Ex-Biafrans with verifiable records of Nigerian pounds in their bank accounts before the war were, however, paid the full amount.
Fifty-six years after the war and 53 since the existence of the NYSC, has Nigeria healed and has the NYSC scheme achieved its purpose? The Nigeria-Biafra civil war may have ended on the battlefield but the war still rages fiercely in the minds and souls of men. The propaganda spewed by Biafra’s ambassador-at-large, novelist Chinua Achebe, and chief propagandist, Uche Chukwumerije, has not abated. In peace time as in war, truth remains the first casualty.
Thousands of Nigerian youths and adults have died in pursuit of the NYSC illusion. I recall that the ebullient student union activist, Banji Adegboro, after his travail at the University of Ibadan where he was expelled as the Student Union president, relocated to the University of Ife to complete his studies. He, however, died on the way to his station during his NYSC service year in 1981. Similar road accidents have claimed many more NYSC lives. Since terrorist incursions began to envelop every part of the country, many more tragedies have befallen NYSC members. For how long? And for what cause? What are we still gaining from this scheme? Has it not already outlived its usefulness? Has it not become anachronistic?
Despite decades of the NYSC, cries of Igbo marginalization still rent the air. To all intents and purposes, the spirit of Biafra is still alive and well. After the tepid MASSOB (Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra) of Ralph Nwazurike has come the more revolutionary IPOB (Indigenous People of Biafra) of Nnamdi Kanu. Secessionist moves, hitherto alien to the Yoruba, are gaining currency in the South-west by the day. What with the mushrooming of hundreds of Yoruba or Oodua Nation nationalist groups and movements advocating one form of restructuring of Nigeria or the other!
Like Napoleon Bonaparte reportedly predicted of China in 1816 or thereabouts, the Hausa in the North are rousing from their century-old slumber. If and when they, like the Chinese, fully get on their feet, the story not just of the North but of Nigeria as a whole will not remain the same again.
The dream of a united Nigeria as presently constituted – and as enunciated by the NYSC – may have become utopian; nay, phantom. To many, the politically-correct cliche of “Nigeria’s unity is non-negotiable” is nothing short of a monumental fraud. The earlier it is negotiated while there is still time for the negotiation, the better for all of us!
In the interim, we should begin to cut down on the avalanche of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) with overlapping functions and those simply gulping funds with nothing commensurate to show for it. Is this not why there are fake Federal Government agencies all over the place? Time to act on the Steve Oronsaye report on the trimming of Federal MDAs is now. Deadwood and moribund agencies must be shaved off the plate.
Are we even aware that an increasing number of our youths are already ignoring the NYSC scheme?
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