Our NYSC 50 years on

When I watched the Batch B stream II of the 2026 National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) on the media, as the nationwide orientation commenced last week, my mind flipped wistfully back to 50 years ago, when my set made a similar engagement in August 1976. That was when we streamed into the capitals of the 19 states of the federation as the 4th set of the NYSC. Then there was only one set serving in the NYSC throughout the year. Graduating students from Nigerian universities were very few – there were only six universities in the country located in Zaria, Ife, Ibadan, Lagos, Benin and Nsukka. The scheme, which started in 1973 with only 2,364 graduates nationwide, ballooned to about 6,000, three times that size, in 1976. This is because it was in 1976 that HND and NCE graduates came on board the scheme. Today, that figure of 6,000 would be minuscule compared to the 400,000 who served in 2025. 1976 was a pivotal year for the country. The regime of General Murtala Mohammed, which overthrew General Yakubu Gowon the previous year, was in a hurry to transform the country. The regime had broken the 12-state structure into 19, named Abuja as the federal capital, and set October 1, 1979, as the target date for returning Nigeria to civilian rule, among other measures. Just 10 days after these earth-shaking pronouncements, General Murtala was assassinated in an attempted coup. We were in our final year when the country was undergoing all these traumas. Mercifully, we concluded our exams in June and became ready for the national service. I was posted to Lagos. I was excited because it held interesting prospects for me. I had never crossed the River Niger and looked forward to the long journey to Lagos. When August arrived, I travelled from Maiduguri, my home, to Kano, where a brother-in-law bought a Nigerian Airways ticket for N25 (twenty-five Naira) so I could fly in style to Lagos. That year we were camped at Yaba College of Technology in the middle of the city. Even while encamped, we were well looked after. Besides the NYSC state officials overseeing our welfare, the NYSC DG himself, Col. Solomon Omojokun, was a regular visitor to the camp, interacting with us. The Lagos State Government threw a cocktail party in the Government House, Marina, to welcome us. During the party, the Military Governor, Admiral Adekunle Lawan, mingled with many of us and had lively chats, amid a free flow of food and drinks. Our camp in Yaba College of Technology was close to a major military barrack and Fela’s Kalakuta Republic. During the encampment, Fela’s Kalakuta became a rendezvous of sorts for the corpers in camp. Unfortunately, Kalakuta Republic would be famously burnt down a few months down the line in February 1977, due to an altercation between Fela and soldiers. We found Lagos in August 1976, a city in flux. There was massive construction underway in preparation for the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, billed to start in January 1977. Major road construction was in progress across Lagos, particularly on the multi-lane Ikorodu Expressway. The National Theatre was being completed and ready for FESTAC. During FESTAC, it was an opportunity to be amid the greatest assemblage of black artistes, writers and performers from 56 countries, celebrating our heritage through music, dance and art. We saw Miriam Makeba, Stevie Wonder and many of our icons of the time. The majority of the corps members had meaningful primary places of attachment. With a marketing background, I was posted to a private food processing company in Onigbongbo, Maryland, on the Ikorodu Expressway. The company was a small going concern, and I became involved in its running. I was connected to the major retail outlets of Lagos, Leventis, Kingsway, UTC, and the like, where our products were displayed. I also occasionally travelled outside Lagos to source materials for our production lines. I lived in Mende village, Maryland, then a small fishing settlement still exhibiting vestiges of a rural community, though it was a growing suburb of Lagos.  It was a short distance to the factory, and I walked there every day. I still relish the experience I gathered from that posting. The Managing Director kept in touch with me for years after. He even visited me in Maiduguri in the mid-80s, when I was in the Chad Basin Development Authority, and he was interested in sourcing wheat for his company. I gave him a grand tour of our project in New Marte and rounded it up with a boat trip to Lake Chad. Now, 50 years later, the NYSC has come a long way. The size of the scheme has grown exponentially, from a mere few thousand to hundreds of thousands now, making it a logistical nightmare. However, it seems the scheme will undergo drastic changes that will overhaul it entirely. The reform, already approved by the federal government, will introduce civilian-led management, extend orientation from three to six weeks, split into three phases, and remov

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