What does it mean to serve your nation? There is a sense in which national service; the scheme operated by the National Service Secretariat, is not service to the nation. It is an avenue for school leavers to show patriotism to their country. Service with compulsion is patriotism bought on a loan. Somebody has to pay the interest. You do not choose where you want to serve; you are deployed like a soldier to serve your nation. It is harsh in Cuba and South Korea. In Nigeria, they call it Youth Service.
Were we going to deny Gender and Social Protection Minister-nominee, Otiko Afisa Djaba, parliamentary approval because she skipped national service? During her vetting at the Appointments Committee a few days ago, it was established that Nana Akufo-Addo’s choice for the sensitive ministry had not done the mandatory national service after school, as provided by the Ghana National Service Scheme Act, 1980 (Act 426).
The nominee had other problems during the vetting. She had been called upon to apologise for describing former President Mahama as “wicked and an embarrassment.” With some brazen obstinacy, she had refused to recant and apologise, insisting that she expressed an opinion based on her assessment of the former president. The rhetoric of political campaign is often different from the language of governance.
In the heat of politics, we say all kinds of things. Those were Ursula Owusu-Ekuful’s words when some of the ‘rhetorical excesses’ of her politics were pointed out to her during her vetting. The Communication Minister-nominee had carried herself quite graciously, demonstrating the emotional intelligence and diplomatic composure required for good performance at the highest levels of public service.
The requirement of national service came up again when Tourism and Creative Arts Minister-nominee, Catherine Abelema Afeku, faced the Appointments Committee earlier in the week. Like Otiko, the tourism-nominee had also skipped the service. She had explained that she was in Kenya with her parents at the time. She, however, respectively appealed that she will be willing to carry out the service if she gets the opportunity. Even the hard-hitting minority side on the committee was consumed by Catherine Afeku’s gracefulness. It was as if they had said ‘No service? No problem.’
We are almost certain that there may be a few ministers and Members of Parliament who may have skipped national service for some compelling, even if unjustifiable, reasons. Most 40 something year olds whose educational trajectory followed the predictable O’ Level–A’ Level–National Service–University–National Service pattern would have done national service at least once before venturing into full time work.
Ideally, you would have done it twice if there were no interruptions in this routine. I did it before and after university. The first was a very uninspiring venture at the Sunyani office of the Non-Formal Education Division of the Ministry of Education. My schedule was to monitor and report the classroom activities of adult learners during classes in villages around the district. It was a sheer waste of my time and the government’s time.
There were three of us who had been posted to the same office to undertake an activity that required less than half the energies of one person. I still remember their names more than 26 years after we left the not-so-hallowed offices of the adult literacy programme. Some of the colleagues who served at the banks were retained. Today, they are accomplished professionals serving their nation, thanks to national service.
I had regretted not joining my friends to teach in the deprived villages of the Eastern Region. One of them has taught English and Social Studies at Sie nkyem, where the chief of the village and a Pentecost elder slugged it out to win the affections of my friend for their daughters. The rival girls had competed ferociously for the love of the national service darling with loads of food while their brothers supplied bush meat.
My post-university national service was both a redemption and a cure to the malaise of nothingness that was my occupation during my sixth form service. This time, I had been resourceful and enterprising enough to arrange a suitable place for myself. Before the postings would come out, I had applied for internship at the ministry of communications. They had found me a good fit and requested the NSS to post me to the ministry. Those were the foundations of my life in public service.
Now, let’s be honest: Would I have spent a year collecting meagre allowance as a national service person if somebody had offered me a good paying job? Would I have been so consumed with the idea of serving my nation to refuse an opportunity to travel abroad on scholarship or to work for a few years and save some money? Some of my mates who had these opportunities took them with glee.
There would always be future opportunities to serve the nation if you used the service period for other productive activity. Some of our friends who skipped the service managed to do it when they returned from abroad. Others had found decent jobs in the public and private sectors when they had not even completed national service. According to the law, national service is mandatory for public and private employment.
Catherine Afeku may not have been deployed to a poor community on national service, but what better service could anybody give to her nation than representing the interests of a whole constituency in Parliament? The tourism nominee served the people of Evalue-Ajomoro-Gwira as MP for four years. She lost the seat and recaptured it in 2016. That is national service. Her people value this more than any posting the NSS has done.
The suggestion to pay minister-nominees who skipped national service the same allowance as service personnel for a year is untenable and unpatriotic. The job of a minister is national service in triplicate. Some public servants have forfeited the perks of their offices and served their nation without pay. There are no recent cases of service personnel who served for free. Instead, there are calls for increases in allowance.
Today, the NSS is a much better programme than it was when I dosed through eight hours of discomforting boredom at the Non-Formal office. We must all help the scheme to work better. For now, let’s put a sock in it for Hon. Catherine Afeku and Otiko Djaba.
By Kwesi Tawiah-Benjamin/ Tissues of the Issues
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