My service year was a memorable one. For eleven months I met and interacted with colleagues from across Nigeria and was able to experience and appreciate the social and cultural differences of other people. These differences sometimes presented challenges but all in all we were able to get on with association. There were of course times when these differences stood in the way of further relationships. At these times both parties recognised the situation and respected it.

I have been privileged, because I attended federal institutions at both my secondary and tertiary levels of education, to have met and interacted with people from many different parts of Nigeria. This has helped me, and I noticed others like me to be more open and capable to successfully interact with other corps members. For many however, the NYSC scheme was the first opportunity to travel out of their regions of origin and interact with people from other regions of Nigeria. These corps members initially found interaction with corps members from other regions difficult and would resort to forming groups with members from their regions of origin. As time went on however, some of the walls built around these groups would come down when members discovered that they had interests aligned with corps members found not necessarily in their regional groups but among members of other groups.

As the service year passed on we had more and more opportunities to interact and work together towards shared goals. However, the successes of these interactions were disturbed once or twice by happenings in other parts of the country. The socio-ethno-religious crises in Jos and Bauchi were notable. Not only did these crises affect corps members who had relatives and friends residing in these places, there were also reports of corps members who were direct victims of these violent crises. This led to many questioning the necessity of the NYSC scheme. Palpable tensions even developed as a result among corps members.

Many in Nigeria today are losing faith in the NYSC scheme, a scheme that was designed to promote national integration and cooperation. Some even call the service year a waste.

We have to realise however that at the very least the NYSC scheme provides Nigerian youths the platform on which for a year they can experience living and working in different circumstances from what they know and their level of success in this depends on how well they are able to integrate and cooperate with others. This is the way to go.

The successes of the NYSC are unsung. If anything, ways should be worked out to discover how to make more successful and meaningful the service year. The NYSC scheme is important to Nigeria and should live on.