THE youthful Minister of Youth Bolaji Abdullahi has threatened to stop posting of members of the National Youth Service Corps to private firms. The threat would be effected next year. He is angry that such firms rely on a regular supply of NYSC members who they use as cheap labour.

His anger hardly has a place in the larger issues of uses firms and organisations that agree to engage them make of NYSC members. The Minister’s solution would further complicate an already confounding situation.

A few truths about the NYSC could help the Minister who appears determined to revive it. The scheme has grown into irrelevance over the years. Not many organisations, governments inclusive, are enthusiastic about accepting NYSC members. Thousands of them roam the streets without any involvement in the lofty programmes that headquarters only imagine go on in the 774 local government areas and their outlying hamlets.

Who can cope with the hundreds of thousands of graduates (real and fake) who join the scheme yearly, when there have been no thoughts about using them? What sanctions can government apply on organisations that refuse to engage NYSC members?

Are there options that the Minister can apply instead of the blanket ban that would throw more NYSC members into the streets? Are there no other ways of punishing defaulting firms? The Minister should work more for the survival of the scheme than make a frustrating decision that would hurt the scheme more.

The NYSC should be turned into a rural development scheme. Firms engaging NYSC members should be part of the rural development plans of governments. Do governments have the political will to develop the neglected rural Nigeria? The employment opportunities that the Minister spoke about exist more in the neglected rural Nigeria. If the Minister is interested, he should comb through the records of some of the best NYSC members, they were the ones who initiated rural programmes for which the people remain grateful, some of the programmes have made deep impacts on the people.

An example with Stephen Jideani, an NYSC member who served in Delta State, last year, will suffice about the type of sacrifices NYSC members make, though they get no direction. He pooled resources for scholarships and educational materials for orphans and indigent students from three communities where he served. By the time he was leaving, 50 students benefited from the scheme he funded from his allowance and donations. The communities were Ogwuashi Ukwu, Issele Azagba and Asaba.

“I had the courage to trek down to the rural communities in search of the students who are orphans. I want my fellow corps members, particularly those coming after us, to pick up such courage when they are serving. They should go down to the down trodden in the society,” said Jideani.

There are countless examples of how the selflessness of corps members has influenced communities. People remember things done outside the call of duty. Examples from corps members prove that a lot can be done to change the society through individual commitment, not minding how small it seems.

Corps members, in some places, have started educational programmes in their communities. Two years ago, some corps members used their resources to build a library, equipped it with computers, for a village outside Abuja. Others have been known to embark on water projects, renovation of schools and improving the sanitary conditions of their localities.

Prisoners in Jos still remember a corps member who started adult education sessions for them. He left two years ago. After his departure, the programme died, and with it, the hopes of some of the prisoners who were already anticipating certification of their literacy.

A lot can be made out of the NYSC programme.

Community development was meant to be the fulcrum of the NYSC programme. It should be revived. Rural Nigeria will benefit immensely from NYSC programmes that channel the energies of NYSC members to worthy rural development initiatives.

The NYSC should invent ways of harnessing the initiatives of these youth and can engage them to sustain these projects beyond their service year. Mr. Abdullahi could direct his youthful passion (even anger) to getting things done in these directions.