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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D. English Department, SUNY-Nassau Garden City, New York February 4, 2017 E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
I personally performed my Sixth-Form National Service before leaving the country in July 1985, and so I have quite a practically relevant sense of what the Scheme means in the larger context of Ghana’s development. In my case, the Sixth-Form National Service had been occasioned by the cynical decision of Flt-Lt. Jerry John Rawlings to shut down all then-three universities in the country because of massive student protests against his increasingly extortionate and tyrannical junta of the so-called Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC).
Today, if you, the dear reader, were to ask me about what I really took away with me from that academically disruptive experience, about all I can honestly say is that for most of the participants, it was a total waste of time, the public purse and energy. Personally, however, I used my service to write and publish three pamphlet-sized commentary notes on English Literature for “O”-Level Students who took the latter examination between 1985 and 1987. My pamphlets could be readily purchased at the Presbyterian and Methodist Book Depots in Central Accra, in the Makola area, as well as the Methodist Book Depot in Kumasi near Kejetia.
On occasion, I have seen a copy or two of my pamphlets on the Amazon search engine, when I googled my name in search of my largely self-published books, eleven of which, by the way, have been selected and housed on shelves at the Library of (the United States’) Congress, the largest of its kind in the world. To cut to the chase, as it were, the Sixth-Form National Service wasted a full-year of the lives of most of the participants. And from the look of things, some three decades on, the Post-University or Tertiary National Service Scheme does not appear to be any better.
And so it comes as a patent absurdity to hear Dr. Eric Opoku, described by the media as a political communicator and a lecturer at the University of Cape Coast, rail virulently against the Parliamentary Appointments Committee’s confirmation of the nomination of Ms. Otiko Afisa Djaba, the National Women’s Organizer of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), as Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, for failing to perform the mandated National Service in her time and on her turn (See “Otiko Djaba’s Approval Would Send Wrong Signals About Skipping National Service – Lecturer” MyJoyOnline.com / Ghanaweb.com 1/31/17).
Has the Cape Coast University political scientist bothered to find out whether the children of Chairman Jerry John Rawlings, the eldest of whom is today a parliamentarian representing the residents of the Klottey-Korle Constituency, in Central-Accra, performed any National Service? At any rate, Ms. Djaba says that she was unable to fulfill her National Service commitments because she was out of the country. Well, have Dr. Opoku and the cynical pack of the National Democratic Congress’ goon squad on the Parliamentary Appointments Committee (PAC) bothered to find out why Ms. Djaba was out of the country? Have any of them also bothered to find out about the systematic harassment and the summary seizures of properties endured by the Henry Djaba Family at the hands of Chairman Rawlings and the rest of the hoodlum pack of robber-barons and terror-mongers that constituted the PNDC cabinet? And before the latter, the so-called Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), also led by Chairman Rawlings?
In principle, I have absolutely nothing against the National Service Scheme, which was officially implemented at full-throttle by the Acheampong-led junta of the National Redemption Council (NRC), later renamed the Supreme Military Council (SMC – I). My beef here is that performing their National Service did absolutely nothing to prevent the NDC-PAC members and their ilk from unconscionably and recklessly plundering the resources of the country, as the key operatives of the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party have begun unearthing. In other words, the National Service Scheme (NSS), as it presently exists, has absolutely no redeeming features whatsoever, besides providing an avenue for a few executive bullies to wantonly abuse, exploit and “legally” enslave the best and brightest of the country’s youths.
For example, most university graduate victims of the NSS never get deployed to serve in the sectors of the economy for which they were academically and professionally trained. And so the entire scheme becomes a virtual exercise in futility. In my time, I chose to teach at the Osu Presbyterian Secondary School (SENDO), against the objections of the State House-holed operators of the scheme, and acquitted myself quite creditably and proudly. In May 1985, my class of Form-Five students set a record at the GCE “O”-Level.
You would think that in a country with 50-percent unemployment rate, the NSS could be refreshingly and progressively retooled to assist the participants with job preparation and creation skills. Instead, what we have here is a teeming pool of modern slaves or medieval workers’ brigade whose talents and energies are arbitrarily exploited at the volition or whims and caprices of the government appointees placed in charge of the same. Not long ago, for instance, a former coordinator of the NSS was charged with the embezzlement of funds earmarked for the administration of the Scheme. And this is what the NDC-PAC members would have Ms. Djaba morally regret for not having been a part of?
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