By UMAR FARUK AHMAD
The one year compulsory National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) is always fun! Right from the three weeks orientation camp to the experience gained from the individual Place of Primary Assignment (PPA), and to top it all the N33,000 monthly allowance as it is that makes you feel like a government employee for 12 months.
Several youths often fantasise about landing a white collar job immediately after NYSC to upgrade from N33,000 a month to a presumptuous N200,000. Not fulfilling this dream could create what some call “Post NYSC trauma”
Few days ago, a twitter veteran @Drolufunmilayo posted “…If you are not from a super-rich home, if your parents are not political elites/allies,
There’s no 300k job waiting for everybody
Post NYSC depression is real”
While awaiting NYSC passing out parade, a Batch A ,2020 corp member serving at Abubakar Tatari Ali Polytechnic Bauchi, Abubakar Ibrahim Waziri expressed his fear of life after NYSC.
He said that him having completed his education is ready for whatever job the government can offer, while also admitting that chances of securing a job is unpredictable.
He alleged that it doesn’t matter what you know but who you know.
Speaking on self dependence, Waziri said he would rather be a job creator than a job seeker.
“I used my allowances to start up a shop and I am doing a clothing business now. My plan is after service I am going to start a laundry so I am going to merge the two. If I don’t make sales in the laundry, I will make sales in the clothing business”
Another outgoing corp member Mr. Desmond Ezuluebo condemned the notion of a job waiting for a person after NYSC.
“I have an elder brother who stayed at home for five years without a job, so I know how he struggled before he got something he was doing” he related. He advised all corp members to get themselves equipped with on demand skills in order to be self reliant financially.
Speaking with another corp member Hart Princess Esther explained that post NYSC trauma only affects those who depend on white collar jobs. Esther related that she is into painting and installation of 3D boards which she will depend on after her youth service.
In addition, a 2016 ex corp member Khadijah Lawal Kwargana exclaimed that post NYSC trauma is real! Absence of the monthly allowance coupled with idleness requires adjustment in one’s life, she said.
Miss Kwargana maintained that if she could go back in time she wouldn’t do anything differently during her youth service because she saved part of her allowances and used it judiciously.
From an entrepreneurs view, a graduate of animal science and an ex corp member from 2016 Mr. Iliya Micah narrated that despite graduating with first class honours, he didn’t receive any employment offer from the university as he was expecting, a situation which he said is an indication that the promises of the 21st century are fast declining.
He argued that at the dawn of a new revolution white collar jobs are going into extinction.
Mr. Micah maintained that post NYSC trauma is real, relating that after 12 months, the monthly allowances and corporate clothes are taken away.
While alerting corp members that the global economy has changed, the entrepreneur therefore advised them to invest in themselves before completing the service.
“The world is in what we call the connected economy or the connected revolution ” Mr. Micah asserted!
