{"id":245798,"date":"2016-09-05T10:21:56","date_gmt":"2016-09-05T10:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=245798"},"modified":"2016-09-05T10:21:56","modified_gmt":"2016-09-05T10:21:56","slug":"my-petition-national-service-warts-and-all-and-cloud-of-silver-lining","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2016\/09\/my-petition-national-service-warts-and-all-and-cloud-of-silver-lining\/","title":{"rendered":"My petition: \u00a0National service \u2013 warts and all, and cloud of silver lining"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cMusic should make you laugh, make you cry or make you think. If it doesn\u2019t do one of those three things, then you\u2019re wasting everybody\u2019s time.\u201d \u2013 Kenny Rogers<\/em><\/p>\n

Petitions apart from demonstrations are favourite means of driving home a grief in Ghana. The grief may range from releasing some party faithful from prison to some paramount chief asking for one public infrastructure or the other, or some workers who don\u2019t want the State Corporation they work with to be sold off and the beat goes on.<\/p>\n

National Service is mandatory \u2013 NS Act 426, 1980 makes it so. Another service year has begun in earnest by graduates of various tertiary institutions across the length and breadth of the Motherland in various governmental and non-governmental agencies. However, there are issues that the NSS have deliberately turned a blind eye to and on all the occasions these issues have been raised, the issues fall on deaf ears of the NSS.<\/p>\n

Umaru Amadu Sanda of Citi FM wrote an article, \u201cNational Service or National Suffering\u201d published on ghanawe.com,<\/em> October 17, 2010 about these issues. He discussed \u00a0\u201csquare pegs in round holes policy\u201d of the NSS that had always been justified and is still justified, and the unconcerned attitude of the NSS about graduate\u2019s accommodation even as they\u2019re posted to parts of Ghana they don\u2019t know about nor have families there.\u00a0 \u00a0A case in point, posting someone who had studied communication to teach at the basic level or posting someone to an organisation that does not need the services of service persons.<\/p>\n

In evaluating any argument there\u2019re always two issues to be considered: the quality of the reasoning and the truth of the premises. The issues raised by my mate were relevant; they exist, but the Secretariat keeps justifying or rationalising. Is it true, the National Service Secretariat justifies the \u201csquare pegs in round holes\u201d? Yes, the secretariat does. Does the National Service Secretariat care about the accommodation issues of national service personnels before they start their service especially in regions away from their homes? No, the secretariat doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

As I write this piece, there\u2019re personnels who have still not reported to their posts \u2013 no accommodation. The agency they\u2019ve been posted to isn\u2019t ready to assist either. This brings to the fore, what are the NASPA dues used for? There is supposed to be at least a transit quarters for service persons in each region, district or municipal areas, however, there\u2019re few or non-existent.<\/p>\n

The NSS can begin to seek for funding to solve this problem of graduates who have to pay exorbitant fees for accommodation only for a year. The issue about sending graduates to sectors they have no knowledge of must be looked at again. It\u2019s an oddity. It\u2019s improper for the career development of any young graduate. No justification whatsoever is enough for this trend.<\/p>\n

Albeit, these issues prevail, all NSPs must think of how to make something out of nothing.\u00a0 There\u2019s a quote, I saw somewhere, \u201cwe\u2019ve done so much with so little that we can do anything with nothing\u201d. The place of posting may be somewhere else in one obscure area of Ghana, go out there, and look out for how you can use all that you\u2019ve learnt to better the lives of the people in one aspect of their lives or the other.<\/p>\n

On this note, take a cue from Kenny Rogers\u2019 song, \u201cMy petition\u201d. The song is about a boy who went round collecting signatures for his petition to the President and this is a verse of it.<\/p>\n

I said, \u201cSon, sounds like a world<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to live in\u201d<\/p>\n

And I signed his petition<\/p>\n

He thanked me for my time<\/p>\n

I headed back inside, grabbed my beer<\/p>\n

An\u2019 got back to the game<\/p>\n

Thought by now that boy, he\u2019s three doors down<\/p>\n

Here I am just sittin\u2019 round<\/p>\n

Waitin\u2019 on the world to change<\/p>\n

An\u2019 I thought, \u201cMan, ain\u2019t that a<\/p>\n

Place I\u2019d like to live in\u201d<\/p>\n

And I thank God for that boy<\/p>\n

That\u2019s out there fixin\u2019<\/p>\n

The world with his petition<\/p>\n

Habits die hard. The story is told of a lady who lost her job due to her addiction to social media. She was caught busily surfing the internet and chatting on Facebook during productive hours. She was immediately dismissed. Although she was given the remainder of her salary of the subsequent months, she lost her job. Let\u2019s watch our addiction and work on ourselves.<\/p>\n

With this petition of mine, I wish all NSPs the best as they serve Mother Ghana.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By: By Alex Blege<\/p>\n

Email: kw.ameblege@hotmail.com\/kw.ameselom12@gmail.com<\/p>\n

The author is a freelance journalist with interest in human and social development and sustainable development.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cMusic should make you laugh, make you cry or make you think. If it doesn\u2019t do one of those three things, then you\u2019re wasting everybody\u2019s time.\u201d \u2013 Kenny Rogers Petitions apart from demonstrations are favourite means of driving home a grief in Ghana. The grief may range from releasing some party faithful from prison to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":242276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[374],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nMy petition: \u00a0National service \u2013 warts and all, and cloud of silver lining - Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. 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