Editorial cartoons on this page appear four days a week on the back page of THISDAY

Search This Blog

Wednesday, 27 April 2011

Scrap the damn scheme!


Many States in Nigeria don’t consider education a priority. Their citizens snub education and embrace religion. These States demonstrate nonchalance to education by spending their income, (derived largely from the oversized freebie allocations they receive monthly from the Federal government), on religious activities, commerce and white elephant projects.

However, a number of States in Nigeria take education seriously. Sometimes, too fanatically! Their citizens scrimp and save to educate their children and wards to the highest possible levels with little or no help from their state governments or the Federal government.

But at harvest time, the Federal Government is first on the queue. They harvest fresh graduates and push them straight into a post-tertiary scheme, National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), for a compulsory one-year servitude. Now nicknamed “Corpers”, they are posted to States other than theirs (particularly to States that give education the middle finger) to work under unsafe conditions in government and private establishments for a paltry monthly allowance (national minimum wage) paid by the Federal government.

Sadly, a change is NOT gonna come!

Added 23 March, 2025

No comments: