National Service: Not a National Suffering but a Patriotic Dedication

“Ask not what your nation can do for you; rather ask what you can do for your nation”

Growing up I was told a blatant lie by my generation that; if you want to be successful, you must do your best always to avoid disappointment. They said you must always play the game of life safely. The above concept crippled many from setting and reaching out to their dreams back in college days. During graduation, the advice was “Do your best to manipulate the system in order to be posted to a city or else your National Service becomes National Suffering.” Interestingly, there happens to be an iota of truth in this advice to some extent. Poor communication network, lack of drinkable water, poor road networks, poor lightening systems and poor sanitations contributing to frequent outbreak of diseases such as malaria are generally known challenges in the remote areas. The only solution is to have protocol or pay bribes to the scheme officials- but if you are a lady avoid the first two and seduce them to bed.”

The truth is most personnel succeed by using the above approaches to refuse posts in underdeveloped towns of Ghana while others no matter how they try; the disappointment of having their National Services at a village becomes unavoidable. Murphy's Law says: “whatever can go wrong will go wrong. Of all the things that can go wrong, the worst possible thing will go wrong at the worst possible time and cost the most of money.”

This means that in life, disappointment comes unbidden. It comes in spite of your best efforts to avoid it. As sure as the sun rises from the east and sets in the west, you are going to experience disappointments in life, but the most important thing is how you respond to it. You do not have control over disappointment but how you respond and react it is your choice.

I have discovered that, the successful and failure both experience disappointment, however, they respond differently to it. While unsuccessful people become angry, complain, blame or attack people; successful people adapt, recover and continue to move on. In our case, most of the times, the disappointed personnel become blind of the opportunities available in the villages and the unexpected institutions of their posts. Having your service at the village is not a National Suffering but a dedication to public service of our nation. It is an opportunity to explore and discovery of new environments, an opportunity to learn how to be more adaptable when conditions are unfavorable in life. It brings a moment to discover something unique about one's self. Living in the village as service personnel helps to save enough money since your cost of living is low, and it offers you enough time to venture into others businesses. Time becomes a blessing since you are saved from long traffics and transportation hustles that characterize our cities. I know of personnel who have started big time poultry farms, writing of books and so forth during their services in the villages. Notwithstanding, that nationalism and patriotic sentiments that fill our hearts to contribute to a society and Ghana we dearly loved. America is America because of Americans: they believe in every American, so Ghana will be Ghana, if you and I will believe in every Ghanaian whether in the village or the city. Do you know that it was Dr. Nkrumah's Fanti teacher who changed his name from Francis Nwia-Kofi Ngonloma to Kwame Nkrumah which I believe changed the entire destiny of this great leader of all time? If Dr. Kwame Nkrumah (the African of the century) came from a village like Nkroful, then there is no doubt that there are still some of such personalities in these places personnel abhor to take posts. So we may not know whether, there are some future presidents, doctors, engineers, teachers, nurses, lawyers and pastors in these villages whose lives need to be shaped by us. Putting people first has been the main star in our national flag. As religious and patriotic citizens, our love is tested, when we move out from our own comfort zones and sacrifice to others irrespective of his geographical location. The adage “service to mankind: service to God” embellishes our national creed “….government, which shall secure for ourselves, and posterity the blessings of liberty, equality of opportunity and prosperity;”

However, in as much as personnel accept these responsibilities, it is incumbent on the National Service Secretariat to gather together current information and logistics to improve the scheme. The number one challenge of the scheme is delayed payment of allowances which is as old as time and still remains unraveled. To solve this, I would like to suggest that, the scheme should liaise with the various banks to advance payment of the first month allowances to personnel who take their posts on time especially those posted to the villages. Moreover, the scheme ineffectively and inefficiently use of the human capital contributes to low participation of servicing at villages. I think this is making the service, suffering. How can a graduate be posted to a village school just to teach nursery kids or class one pupils? There are instances, three to four teachers handling just a lower class. This unfortunate situation inculcates in the personnel the spirit of laziness and unpardonable code of ethics. The scheme may not have respect for personnel's specialization but should learn to use their human potential efficient and appropriately.

Critical and careful observation of this situation reveals that number of personnel passing out each outweighs the current available institutions. Perhaps the current gargantuan graduate unemployment could be a supporting factor to the above observation. My suggestion here is that, the total personnel each year can be divided into batches that equate the institutions at a time. While one batch is on the field perhaps for the first six months doing their service, the other batch can be trained by our security institutions. This will boost our national security intelligence, instill discipline into our youth and avoid human waste.

It is worth to note, we are not oblivious of initiative by the Scheme to secure accommodations for personnel taking posts in villages. Kudos to the officials, however, it should be deepened to enroll a lot of personnel.

In conclusion, it is my strongest belief that, a nation worth determines entirely on the intelligence worth of its citizen. Ghana's development is rooted in the developed human resource of Ghanaians. Your actions, my actions and our actions birth this dream and destiny.

Author: Schandorf Adu Bright.