The service personnel have raised concerns that the NPP flagbearer should rather focus on making working conditions better for national service personnel instead of making it optional.

The service personnel argue that the national service period is a time to learn about industries and work ethics as fresh graduates and as such, making it optional will only cause harm to fresh graduates.

“I think that National Service should be mandatory because it is a way of giving back to the state. You have to serve the nation for one year, and people also gain experience through national service. Some people are even employed after national service, and so if you make it optional, it is a way of encouraging people to leave the country right after school,” one past personnel said.

Another current personnel argued that the service must remain mandatory because “it imbues in service personnel patriotism and a way of showing appreciation.”

Meanwhile, a political analyst who is also the head of the Department for History and Political Studies at KNUST, Prof. Edward Brenya, criticized the idea, indicating that National Service personnel serve as a workforce in rural communities. He also highlighted that it is a period to give back to the country as patriotic citizens.

“The personnel provide essential services because they serve in areas where people would not have gone, but they are there providing essential services. They are also there when the government is not able to recruit the needed manpower due to IMF conditionalities.”