Oakton, Va. - Americans rarely look to Africa for inspiration or example, but given President Obama's efforts to ramp up civil service at home, a closer look at Nigeria's mandatory National Youth Service Corps is instructive. It points to an undeniable record of accomplishment in West Africa on one largely unreported front.
Conceived in 1973, in the aftermath of Nigeria's civil war that killed more than 1 million people, the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) was created by General Yakubu Gowon to bind the nation's deep wounds and forge more than 250 tribes into one nation.
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