Nigerian Graduates Abroad Get Special NYSC Treatment

Oh, that’s true! You will soon be doing your National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme… So where will you love to serve? And what if you are posted to some place you do not like? Oh dear, there is absolutely no way I will be posted to somewhere I don’t like, have you forgotten I am an international student? I must be posted to Abuja or at worst Lagos, except of course I choose anywhere else. And then I remembered that’s true. Those Nigerians who studied abroad are given preferential treatment when it comes to NYSC posting. They are mostly posted to the Federal Capital Territory (Abuja) or allowed to make their choice.

But why is this so? Why should someone who left his or her country to school somewhere else be pampered while the ones who stayed at home to get their education are not cared about? Anything foreign in Nigeria is often regarded as superior and the home made inferior. What exactly is the cause of this mentality or pattern of thought? It doesn’t matter if it’s Ghana or Benin Republic or even Haiti, once it’s not Nigeria, it’s superior. In my thinking, a Nigerian who stayed at home to get his or her university education deserves to be treated better than the one who ran away to a foreign place to acquire his or her university education.

But what exactly is the reason for this sort of preferential treatment? What message are they trying to pass across? What is the point exactly? Does it mean that once you study abroad (even West African countries are abroad), you are automatically better? Most of these people who ran away to study especially in Europe or America, believe that Nigeria is not good. Most of the people who went to the nearby West African countries, couldn’t pass JAMB and because admission is easier in Ghana and Benin Republic and their parents could afford to pay the bills, they left Nigeria to school there. Some claim it’s the strike action. Whatever the reason is, they left the country to school.

Now, when they return for the NYSC programme, we treat them like first class citizens by posting them to Abuja or allowing them make their choice. When the reverse should be the case! The Nigerian graduate who went through the number of strikes, the tight admission process and so many other things is now regarded as the second class citizen. I do not know what or who brought up this idea of the preferential treatment given to the ‘international students’. But I am confused, and I need someone to explain it to me. Why should Nigerian graduates who studied abroad be given preferential treatment during NYSC posting?