By David Onwuchekwa
The abduction of prospective National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members travelling from Ibadan to orientation camps in Abia and Akwa Ibom should force Nigeria to confront an uncomfortable question: why are young Nigerians still being sent across dangerous highways without adequate security arrangements?
The corps members were travelling in two buses when gunmen attacked them around Umunoha on the Owerri-Onitsha Road in Imo State on October 1. Security agencies later rescued some victims, but others remained in captivity, with their families facing ransom demands and reports of the victims being beaten by their captors.
This is no longer simply a kidnapping story. It is a warning.
A young graduate who receives a NYSC call-up letter is not embarking on an ordinary private journey. He or she is responding to a national assignment.
The government posts the graduate to another state and expects that young person to travel, report at the orientation camp and serve the country.
That national responsibility should come with a corresponding national duty to protect the traveller.
It is therefore time to seriously reconsider the practice of allowing prospective corps members to travel long distances across states in ordinary commercial vehicles without a properly coordinated security arrangement.
If security agencies have intelligence on kidnapping-prone routes, NYSC authorities should know those routes too. If particular highways have become regular kidnapping corridors, travel arrangements for corps members should be adjusted accordingly.
Why should a 23-year-old graduate travelling to serve Nigeria be left to navigate a known danger zone like an ordinary passenger?
The solution does not necessarily have to mean putting an armed security officer in every bus. It could involve designated departure points, approved transport operators, travel during safer hours, convoy arrangements on identified high-risk corridors, real-time tracking, communication between NYSC offices and state security commands, and immediate response mechanisms whenever a bus deviates from its planned route.
Most importantly, families should not be left to discover that their children have disappeared only after kidnappers begin making telephone calls.
The same principle should extend beyond NYSC.
Schoolchildren travelling in groups across state lines also deserve stronger protection.
Whether they are going for excursions, competitions, examinations, sporting events, religious programmes or educational tours, children travelling long distances should not simply be loaded into buses and released onto highways without adequate security planning.
Nigeria cannot continue to treat road travel as though every highway is equally safe.
The recent Imo incident demonstrates how quickly an apparently routine journey can turn into a nightmare. Police said tactical teams were deployed and intelligence-led operations launched, while the suspected kidnappers’ hideout was later located with drone surveillance. The operation was complicated by intelligence that the hideout had been mined with improvised explosive devices.
That alone should tell policymakers that prevention must receive as much attention as rescue.
Why wait until young people are abducted before mobilising drones, tactical teams, armoured vehicles and other security assets?
Security should begin before the journey, not after the kidnapping.
The Federal Government, NYSC management, state governments, security agencies and transport operators need a coordinated protocol for the movement of corps members between states.
Such a protocol should identify high-risk routes, provide timely security advisories and establish mechanisms for escorted or closely monitored movement where necessary.
Parents, too, deserve a system that gives them confidence that their children are not simply being sent into the unknown.
The NYSC scheme was created to promote national unity and expose young Nigerians to life and service outside their home states. That noble objective should not inadvertently become a vulnerability that criminal elements exploit.
Young Nigerians should be encouraged to serve their country, not made to feel that accepting a posting to another state amounts to accepting unnecessary danger.
The lesson from the Ibadan-to-Imo abduction is painfully clear: Nigeria must stop treating the safe movement of corps members and schoolchildren as an afterthought.
A journey undertaken in the service of the nation should be a journey the nation takes responsibility for.
If government can mobilise security after citizens are kidnapped, it should also be able to mobilise adequate protection before they enter known danger zones.
