A university professor from the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Ogun State, Philip Adetiloye, has said that the urge to bridge the educational gap between the North and the South was one of the hidden objectives for initiating the National Youth Service in 1972, saying that objective has been achieved and can no longer be justified.
Prof. Adetiloye said that every state in Nigeria has a Federal, State, and private universities, hence, using NYSC graduates from Southern Nigeria to fill the educational gap between Northern and Southern Nigeria has outlived its usefulness.
The retired professor of crop science, who stated this while briefing newsmen in Ado Ekiti, on the state of the nation, lamented that Nigeria has become a field laboratory for testing the limits of human endurance.
According to him, the stated major objective of the National Youth Service was to expose Nigerians to other cultures in the country to foster national unity.
“The National Youth Service has not increased national unity nor reduced the perceived differences among the ethnic nationalities in Nigeria. Nigeria is more divided today than ever due to the insecurity unleashed by Fulani herdsmen on other ethnic nationalities and the severe poverty that can be attributed to well-established corruption and injustice in the allocation of resources in Nigeria.”
Speaking on the local government autonomy, he urged foreign embassies in Nigeria to stop issuing travel visas to Nigerian governors, their relatives, and political appointees in the States where local government autonomy is not operative.
“This is because local government autonomy will provide grassroots development, open doors for employment generation, and reduce the exodus of hopeless Nigerians to their countries.
“Non-governmental and civil society organizations and organized labour should sensitize Nigerians to fight for local and state autonomy in order to achieve true federalism, security, peace, and prosperity in Nigeria.
“Non-governmental and civil society organizations and organized labour should ensure that any governor that stalls local government autonomy or uses overt or covert means to divert local government funds must be prosecuted for theft, and such governor must be impeached and should never be voted into any elective office in Nigeria.”
Speaking further, Prof. Adetiloye blamed the government for youth and graduates’ unemployment, payment of slave wages for those in employment, severe hunger, and extreme poverty that have increased the level of hopelessness in Nigeria.
“The economic war that our politicians deliberately unleashed on Nigerians for decades continues to fuel the exodus of our youths, top-class graduates, engineers, doctors, and professors to various countries in search of greener pastures.”
