Expert advocates military training for youths, scrapping of NYSC

President Muhammadu Buhari has been urged to introduce a two-year compulsory military training programme for Nigerian youths whose ages range between 20 and 30 years, so as to inculcate in them patriotism, leadership skills  and curb the anti-social challenges facing the nation.

An educationist and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Lagos State, Chief Livinus Okwara, who made the call in Lagos, said the training programme would involve graduates of the nation’s tertiary institutions, including universities, polytechnics and colleges of education, who would be paid stipends during the duration of their stewardships.

He said in view of the funding and other operational challenges currently facing the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme, the (NYSC) programme should be phased out and replaced with the compulsory military training programme.

He said: “NYSC has lost its value. It has also deviated from its vision of uniting the country and imbibing leadership skills in the participants.

“Some participants are used as office boys and girls and other menial jobs by employers of labour, most of whom do not even care about their welfare, to say the least.”

He regretted that insecurity, as well as insurgency in parts of Nigeria, including the dreaded Boko Haram in the North East, Niger Delta militants, kidnappings and armed robbery attacks had overstretched the country’s armed forces, including the military and the police, adding that graduates of the programme could be easily mobilized as a counterforce to check any such challenges from escalating and impacting the country negatively.

Chief Okwara, who is also the chairman of Rimax Institute, said that the programme, which is also being operated in the United States of America and Europe, would inculcate in our youths, patriotism, inspirations for personal and national development; discipline and leadership skills.