ABSTRACT
The idea of national service in postcolonial Africa is best understood within the context of the socioeconomic pressures that beset the newly independent states in the early 1960s. The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) is a valuable source of manpower, particularly in education and healthcare in rural areas. It has made immense contributions to national development. Above all, it has helped to promote national understanding. In a majority of cases, criticism of national service on the continent has included brilliant ideas for its reinvention, and proponents of national service have not been shy to incorporate some of these proposals in their bid to shore up existing programs. Today, national service in Africa stands at a crucial intersection: between sociopolitical conditions that compel it and a resource situation that frustrates its implementation. In Nigeria, the fortunes of national service are often bound up with the ebbs and flows of politics, a connection that sheds critical light on the phenomenon itself.
