The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) is a mandatory National Youth Service Progromme) for young Nigerian graduates from the various tertiary institutions in Nigeria.
The programme which came into existence in 1973 under the Gowon administration had its primary objective of unification irrespective of ethnic and religious differences and make Nigeria to be one indivisible and prosperous entity.
The NYSC programme was also designed to re-orientate the young Nigerian graduates so that the vast knowledge acquired in their higher academic learning can be better utilized and put to use in a wider society.
To begin this one year mandatory programme, Orientation Camps are set up in all the 36 states of the Federation including the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja to equip corps members for a successful programme.
However, the three weeks NYSC Orientation programme in camps have become a place where different activities or experiences (fun) they call it become the order of the day. So you can guess that orientation camps for corps members have become safe havens for sex, booze, drugs, temporary marriages and all kinds of things whether good or bad take place.
The fun at NYSC Orientation Camps are many. Permit me to dwell on some which include:
- NYSC Orientation Camps across the country could be nothing but thrilling experience. Is usually a place where different names for favourite point call for all fun lovers. For instance, Slim Bars, Club Zero, The Ultimate Point etc. Here, there is no disparity between officials and corps members so long as you have money to spend on drinks and flex around ladies.
It is also a place where the rich guys came to show off in order to impress ladies and the ladies also showed up with the intention of catching boy friends in the camp.
- Soldiers too are not left out. Is a place where soldiers who are supposed to maintain discipline in camps make fun. You would find some soldiers begging to dance with female corps members. Some would drink and even ask corps members to pay for their drinks.
- NYSC Orientation camps are places where you see all manner of things happen on parade ground across the country. Many of them see the programme as their last resort to fun making in life. A friend of mine who served in one of the states stated that in his Platoon where he was deployed to serve in sanitation unit, he picked up used condoms on the field. So he had to do it since it was his duty to keep the parade ground clean.
Even some married women who cannot hold themselves, throw away their wedding rings and joined in the fun making experience.
Even young men and women get themselves drunk or even engage in smoking, things ordinarily they would not have done.
- NYSC Orientation Camp is a place where you see big promises offered to female corps members to sleep with officials and security men so that their areas of primary assignments can be influenced to good companies or organizations. But at the end of the day, this could amount to selling your bodies for nothing as nothing good would in most cases come out of it.
- NYSC Orientation Camp is a place you should expect to see sales of drugs and other hard substances to guys who intend to get high. It is not uncommon to see corps members mix drugs and other substances with soft drinks to make them high.
- Is a place where you meet all kinds of ladies from every part of Nigeria. To many male corps members who confessed to me, you can easily have them by taking them out of camps for days by bribing the soldiers manning the gates of the camps. To them, is really interesting and it has always worked for them.
- NYSC Orientation Camp is a place where you have temporary marriages. There you have the big promise or promises, great expectations but greater disappointments among corps members, NYSC handlers and securities operatives. In some amazing confessions, “I agreed to date him with the intention to marry him”.
Another confession “We both agreed to marry but only to discover that the man was a father of three boys. I trusted him and believed all what he told me. Oh, what a disappointing experience!”
- NYSC Orientation Camp is a place where the unimaginable happens. They are places where food, beverages and other things are sold. Again, they are places where you could get to smoke weed, party and indulge in all kinds of irregular; some adventurous people even made out in the open.
- Is a place where soldiers let their guards down, looking for free beer from the guys and willing and vulnerable girls to flirt with. Some even take these girls homes or private quarters for private business.
- NYSC Orientation Camp is a place where you see corps members in pairs, kissing, groping and doing sexually suggestive things. To very many out there, life in NYSC Orientation Camps are full of wonderful experiences. They see it as their last resort for flexing in life.
To sum up this write up, all these activities widely known as ‘fun’ going on in NYSC Orientation Camps across the country are against the agency’s good code of conduct and guidelines for corps members and handlers. We expect a better re-orientation of our youths for the good of all, the country and full realization of NYSC goals and objectives for which the mandatory National Youth Service Programme stands for. All hands must be on deck to make this laudable programme a success.