INTRODUCTION

Background to National Service

National Service, a name given to a mandatory/ voluntary government service programme that is practised across the world in different forms, (usually in the military, it is known as conscription in some parts of the world).

The expression became common with the British during the Second World War and some years afterwards. Several young people spent one or more years in such programmes.

Compulsory military service typically requires all citizens, or all male citizens, to participate for a period of a year (or more in some countries) usually between the ages of 18 and the late twenties.

Australia, Canada, Finland, Israel, Malaysia, Germany, United Arab Emirates, Greece, United States, United Kingdom, Republic of China, Taiwan, Turkey, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Philippines, Nigeria, New Zealand and Ghana are some of the countries that require citizens to serve their Nation at some point in time in their lives.

In our part of the world students who graduate from accredited tertiary institutions are required under law to complete a one-year national service to the country.  The National Service Secretariat (NSS) is the Government of Ghana agency mandated to formulate policies and structures for national service.

Every year several tens of thousands of graduates are posted to various sectors as service persons. 

According to the National Service regional distribution, Greater Accra recorded a total of 22824, followed by Ashanti Region total of 13537, Brong Ahafo 5993, Eastern Region 5611, Northern Region 5256, Central Region 4615, western Region 4590, Volta Region 3837, Upper West Region 2662 and Upper East 2264 for  2014/2015.

It is interesting to note that “the service is done irrespective of the type of sponsorship the individual may have received through their education or the country in which the tertiary course was pursued in.”

The service personnel is subject to the rules and regulations that govern the establishment to which he/she is posted to.

The persons are entitled to some benefits at the end of each month that is supposed to serve as emolument, in what has been termed ‘allawa’ by service personnel. The amount has often been pegged around the minimum wage. But is that enough to compensate service personnel, especially those in the hinterlands for the hardship they go through? 

Now, after a service person has received posting to wherever, and has honoured the call to serve his or her country, what next?

A lot of service personel, especially those who are posted to the hinterlands serve their nation amidst a lot of challenges that no one but the people who are close to them get to hear about. That makes me wonder, do we call it national service or national suffering?

I did my service in a town in the Central Region called Assin Jakai. I had not heard about the town before and neither had a lot of people I inquired from. I Googled it with hopes of getting some little information on the town, but that proved futile. My next move was to go to the lorry terminals to see if they could render any help. Did that work?

Jakai Diaries

Jakai Diaries is a diary I kept while doing my service in Assin Jakai. It was one of the ways I kept myself busy since there was not much to do during work hours and after work hours. It contains the challenges I faced, new discoveries, interesting occurrences, sights and sounds of Assin Jakai.

It is meant to highlight some of the challenges service persons who have lived all their lives in the city and are accustomed to city life face in the hinterlands when posted to towns far away from the city.

Jakai Diaries will be published once every week.