NYSC and the state-sanctioned gamble with Nigerian lives
My mentee, Obed, reached out to me over the week, panicking that his brother, who left Kaduna at 8 am to resume at the NYSC camp in Taraba, had yet to arrive at his destination at midnight. He wasn’t picking up his calls nor responding to his messages either. Those were harrowing hours for Obed and the rest of his family members, wondering if he had been kidnapped or something worse had happened to him.
Eventually, the brother responded that their car had broken down in the middle of nowhere and they were trying to fix it. We were all filled with fear till he finally made it to his destination. He was lucky to have arrived safe, but some others aren’t so lucky.
The National Youth Service Corps has morphed into something its 1973 architects never intended. What began as a post-Civil War reconciliation effort has become an annual ritual of sending young graduates into danger zones while those who designed the system sit comfortably in Abuja. The roads corps members must travel have become death traps. The communities they are posted to are under siege. Yet the NYSC machinery continues its work as if the Nigeria of 2025 is the same as the Nigeria of 1973.
This past week alone, over 300 schoolchildren and 12 teachers were kidnapped from St. Mary’s Catholic School in Niger State. Days before, 25 schoolgirls were abducted from a school in Kebbi State, with the vice principal killed while trying to protect them. Terrorists stormed a church in Kwara State during service, killing two worshippers and kidnapping the pastor and dozens of others. The kidnappers are now demanding 100 million naira per worshipper for their release. This is the Nigeria the government expects young graduates to navigate alone, unarmed, and often far from any support system.
The National Human Rights Commission reports that at least 2,266 people were killed by bandits or insurgents during the first half of 2025 alone. In August 2023, eight corps members traveling from Uyo to Sokoto were kidnapped in Zamfara State. A female corps member was murdered in Kaduna.
Another was kidnapped in Delta State with captors demanding 5 million naira ransom. In January 2025, Safwan Fade, a corps member serving in Plateau State, was brutally attacked at a township stadium and died from his injuries. The Foundation for Investigative Journalism’s 2023 report detailed a record of 83 corp members abducted over the years; the numbers have risen since then.
Many of these abductions make the rounds on social media and are not picked up by mainstream media with families scrambling to raise ransoms for their kidnapped loved ones.
The government’s response? The NYSC recently denied issuing pamphlets advising corps members on what to do when kidnapped. But current and former corps members insist they received exactly such documents. The pamphlet advised travelers on high-risk roads to alert family and friends so someone would be available to pay ransom if they were abducted. It instructed potential victims not to antagonize their captors, to be polite, to establish personal relationships with kidnappers. Not one word about government responsibility. The subtext is unmistakable: you are on your own.
Even more revealing is how NYSC has historically frustrated efforts by families trying to raise funds for kidnapped corps members. When young people are seized while fulfilling mandatory service, their families scramble for ransom money while the government that deployed them offers nothing but statements about “ongoing efforts.” The insulting irony is that these same young people cannot refuse to serve without destroying their future employment prospects.
What exactly does this program still accomplish? Corps members regularly cluster with others from their ethnic groups. Many are posted to urban centers or warehoused in organizations with no real need for their labor. The NYSC certificate has been reduced to nothing more than a bureaucratic requirement, proof not of service rendered but of a year endured and survived.
Some graduates have chosen not to report for service. They understand that no certificate justifies risking abduction, assault, or death. But Nigeria punishes this reasonable decision to prioritise safety. Without that NYSC discharge certificate, you cannot secure employment in most sectors. The choice the government presents is grotesque: gamble with your life or forfeit your future.
President Tinubu’s administration continues this program as if the security situation in Nigeria is stable. As if young people aren’t being kidnapped from schools and churches daily. As if roads aren’t controlled by armed bandits.
NYSC was designed for a different Nigeria, one that may never have existed outside the imagination of its architects. Over fifty years later, we cling to this program not because it serves any meaningful purpose but because dismantling it would require admitting that our approach to national unity has failed. The people making these policies don’t send their own children to serve in Zamfara or Plateau or Niger State. They don’t lie awake at midnight wondering if their son’s phone is off because the car broke down or because he’s been dragged into the bush by armed men.
Obed’s brother made it to Taraba safely but Safwan Fade and many others weren’t so lucky. How many more names will we add to this list before we acknowledge that this program is not justifiable at a time like this? The memorial to this failure already exists. It lives in every family still waiting for a kidnapped child to come home. It lives in every graduate forced to choose between safety and survival. We must accept as a nation that NYSC is currently unsafe and end this exercise in futility before more lives are lost.
Ndi Kato is a political analyst, commentator and gender advocate challenging the systems that shape governance and social progress
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