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Opportunity Cost – Lost Productivity and Career Delays
Few national policies exact a heavier, yet less acknowledged, toll on Nigeria’s developmental potential than the enforced delay of its most educated demographic through the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). Framed as a civic duty and patriotic rite, the scheme has instead become an annual interruption—halting economic momentum at a crucial inflection point in graduates’ lives. While the recent increase in corps members’ monthly stipends from ₦33,000 to ₦77,000 in March 2025 is a welcome correction to a long-standing injustice, it remains a superficial solution to a deeper structural problem: the wasteful postponement of productivity, careers, and national innovation.
The numbers are stark. In a competitive labor market where entry-level professionals can earn ₦150,000 or more monthly, the ₦77,000 NYSC stipend, though an improvement, still lags significantly behind true earning potential. This equates to a monthly income gap of ₦73,000—or ₦876,000 annually per corps member. Multiplied across approximately 350,000 annual participants, the total national opportunity cost approaches ₦300 billion in unrealized income and tax contributions. This is a conservative estimate. It excludes lost investment potential, entrepreneurial ventures deferred, and professional certifications delayed because graduates must first complete an outdated civic requirement.
This economic detour is not uniquely Nigerian. In South Korea, Park (2022) found that compulsory military service for men depressed early career earnings, with the negative effects persisting for up to five years after discharge. In Europe, Puhani and Sterrenberg (2021) demonstrated that conscripts experienced wage penalties of 10–15% compared to peers who entered the workforce directly. Mandatory national service, when not aligned with economic trends, can affect the development of human capital and hinder integration into the job market.
Even more telling is the Iranian case. Fatemi, Mehrara, and Taiebnia (2021) revealed that many Iranian men were willing to pay substantial amounts to avoid mandatory military service, citing career disruption and financial stagnation as primary concerns. In each of these examples, national service—when overly rigid—functions as a structural disincentive, displacing meritocratic participation with enforced stasis. Nigeria’s NYSC mirrors this dysfunction in a civilian guise.
Locally, the dissonance is both economic and psychological. Fadairo (2011) found that 41% of ex-corps members described their NYSC year as professionally “irrelevant,” while over 56% said their placements bore no connection to their academic training. In an economy that is already fragile, where youth unemployment and underemployment collectively affect over 40% of the population (NBS, 2022), NYSC delays not only employment, but dignity, self-confidence, and personal investment.
The scheme also distorts the broader labor market. Public and private institutions often exploit corps members as stopgap labor, perpetuating structural underinvestment in long-term staffing. McQuoid-Mason (2003) demonstrated how NYSC law graduates were deployed as makeshift public defenders—not to build legal capacity, but to patch institutional failure. The result is a dependence on temporary, rotating labor that undermines professionalism and accountability.
Moreover, the financial strain doesn’t end with lost earnings. Corps members incur a slew of out-of-pocket expenses—transport to rural locations, rent due to inadequate state accommodation, and, disturbingly, unofficial payments for preferred postings. Avwokeni (2016) critiques this as a normalized layer of institutional corruption, where the very youth the program is supposed to serve must bribe their way into safety or relevance.
Read also: Beyond NYSC: Why Nigeria Must End Youth Service—Part 3
The NYSC’s Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED) program was introduced as a palliative, aiming to convert corps members into entrepreneurs by the end of their service. But SAED has fallen flat. Deebom and Daerego (2020) found that fewer than 20% of participants received practical, hands-on training, and less than 6% launched any business ventures afterward. Adedayo et al. (2023) confirmed that youth involved in apprenticeship-based interventions outside NYSC fared better across every measure of entrepreneurial readiness—access to mentorship, funding, and real-world market exposure.
The academic consensus is also shifting globally. Friedberg, Leive, and Cai (2024) showed that mandatory pension contributions can crowd out voluntary savings among young workers, particularly when early earnings are suppressed. Mastrogiacomo, Dillingh, and Li (2023) made similar findings in the context of compulsory pension savings. The parallel is clear: when institutions interrupt earning cycles in the name of enforced contributions, be it savings or national service, and they often undermine the very empowerment they aim to promote.
The same distortion plays out in civic systems. Ela and Pelenk (2023) demonstrated that compulsory citizenship behaviors, whether in workplace or national service contexts—frequently diminish intrinsic motivation and overall performance. When obligation replaces choice, engagement erodes. Hakobyan (2024), analyzing compulsory insurance systems, concluded that economic growth thrives on flexibility and tailored incentive models—not blunt instruments that treat all participants identically regardless of context or capacity.
This logic is gaining ground across global pension reform discussions. Larsen and Munk (2020) argue that mandatory programs must be redesigned around lifecycle efficiency and personal economic agency. Nigeria’s NYSC scheme, by contrast, remains rigid, linear, and rooted in a bygone era.
It is long past time for Nigeria to confront a difficult truth: the NYSC program, while once symbolically useful, is now economically destructive. It deprives the nation of one of its most vital assets; productive youth, in the name of performative nationalism. It delays careers, defers income, and erodes individual potential at the very moment graduates should be charting independent futures.
If the goal is nation-building, then the way forward is not forced stagnation but purposeful empowerment. The ₦77,000 allowance may soften the blow, but it does not solve the problem. Nigeria must evolve from symbolic rituals to evidence-based youth engagement strategies; ones that reward initiative, match talent to national needs, and place trust in the capacity of its graduates not to serve blindly, but to build intentionally.
Let us be clear: a year lost in NYSC is not just a year of missed income; it is a year stolen from Nigeria’s future.
References
Adedayo, O., Adeyeye, J., Egbetokun, A., Olomu, M., Oluwadare, J., Sanni, M. & Orisadare, M., 2023. Pooled longitudinal dataset on the assessment of an apprenticeship-based entrepreneurship intervention in Nigeria. Research Data Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1163/24523666-bja10031
Avwokeni, A.J., 2016. Cultural resistance, output measures, and audit practice: Impact on non-implementation of program-based budgeting in Nigeria. International Journal of Public Administration, 39, pp.909–916. https://doi.org/10.1080/01900692.2015.1057850
Deebom, M.T.B. & Daerego, I.T., 2020. The influence of NYSC entrepreneurship skill acquisition programmes on youth empowerment in Rivers State. International Journal of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education. https://doi.org/10.20431/2349-0381.0706016
Ela, S. & Pelenk, S., 2023. The effect of compulsory citizenship behavior on work performance. [Unpublished/Journal unspecified].
Fadairo, O., 2011. Perceived influence of the NYSC scheme on youth development among ex-corps members. Journal of Agricultural Faculty of Social Science. https://doi.org/10.4314/joafss.v8i2.71638
Fatemi, M., Mehrara, M. & Taiebnia, A., 2021. How much are Iranian men willing to pay for exemption from military service? Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy, 28, pp.13–27.
Friedberg, L., Leive, A. & Cai, W., 2024. Does mandatory retirement saving crowd out voluntary retirement saving? Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2024.02.009
Hakobyan, G.M., 2024. Assessment of the impact of compulsory insurance on ensuring economic growth. Messenger of Armenian State University of Economics.
Larsen, L.S. & Munk, C., 2020. The design and welfare implications of mandatory pension plans. SIRN: Employment-Based Pensions (Topic).
McQuoid-Mason, D., 2003. Legal aid in Nigeria: Using NYSC public defenders to expand services. Journal of African Law, 47(1), pp.107–116. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0221855303002001
Mastrogiacomo, M., Dillingh, R. & Li, Y., 2023. The displacement effect of compulsory pension savings on private savings. The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, 25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeoa.2023.100448
National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), 2022. Labour Force Statistics: Unemployment and Underemployment Report Q4 2022. Abuja: NBS.
Park, K., 2022. Compulsory military service and its impact on subsequent civilian wages: Evidence from recent young veterans in South Korea. Asia-Pacific Social Science Review.
Puhani, P.A. & Sterrenberg, M.K., 2021. Effects of mandatory military service on wages and other socioeconomic outcomes. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3778608
