My NYSC Experience

In a highly serene environment, I sat before my keyboard ready to punch the hell out of the buttons. Owing to the clumsy weather, not to mention the epileptic internet service, I was lost in magnetic ..
distraction until when my old blackberry bold 2 began ringing in its usual awkward manner.


I reluctantly picked it up from the table and the name I saw on the screen was a close friend of mine who once made a conquest of my heart back then in the university. Ebi was the true soul of beauty. With a remarkable persona, her dark hair, her deep piercing eyes, the tea rose complexion, the high-standing balls on her chest she captured the attention of all “Adams” in campus and it still baffles me why I never popped the question. Well, that’s by-the-way.

“Mobilization list is out,” she said over the phone. Her words sent my pressure into orbit. I tensed up remembering that many have gone through this national path and never returned. The thought of being sent to the North gathered goose bumps from nowhere and assembled them on my forehead. 

“I will rather swallow a live snake than go to a city where my life would be snuffed out by another in the most gruesome way,” I said and shook my head, managing to keep my voice level and unyielding optimistic.

As soon as it was 6pm, I gathered every part of me and scurried out of the edifice that has held me captive for twelve freaking hours to where I can now describe as my Alma-mater- I deserve the bragging right. The 30minutes drive was like a journey to the last village in Nigeria but finally I was at the Student Affairs Department-the department, notorious for shaping the fate of most students. Students or rather graduates more like, gathered in their numbers to check where they are posted to serve Nigeria- their father land.

“This must be a crazy mistake. How can I be sent to Plateau state after all my effort to be posted to Abuja?” a graduate student retorted angrily. No one needed to be told that he had been swindled of his money with the promise of being posted to Abuja. I wasn’t scared of the same fate befalling me because I hadn’t paid anyone. Why would I after all I had a genuine link to “Ogas” in high places. “What the fuck!”  He spat out, trying so hard to restrain the tremulous tears choking his taut throat. Plateau state is not that bad, is it? At least they have fresh tomatoes.

Another graduate student stared blankly at the board picturing the supposed place she had been posted to serve. She was looking as though she held herself together with terrible efforts. I became nervous, fretful; vague and vaporous within minutes watching the entire long and distraught faces.

 

I meandered through the crowd and managed to sandwich myself between two heavily built soon-to-be corps members- if I were NYSC I would send guys like that to Borno state, their sights alone would send those blood thirsty infidels giving us sleepless nights to their graves. After countless minutes, my search was rewarded. My heart slipped its moorings and hammered heavily. I literally fainted with what I saw. “What the...” I almost screamed but then remembered how that disciplinarian mother would take it if she heard me say the last word.

The look on my face when I saw my posting

   “There’s no way in hell I am going,” I steamed, anger and frustration swamping over me.

I gave the two letters a cursory look and matched it with the 28^th state in Nigeria-when arranged in alphabetical order. I breathed a sigh of relief; at least I wasn’t posted to that region-the region where the youths pride itself in raping and molesting corps members; the region where the security of my life as a corps member is absolutely not guaranteed; the region where I am like a fiend that have come to desecrate their custom and traditions.

I took my phone from my inner trouser pocket and dialed the number of my supposed “Oga” in high places, who had promised to influence my posting to my dream state at all cost.

 His reply when I told him of the foiled mission flared my anger back to life like a struck match. I flinched and nipped at my under lip with my teeth and cursed fate for being so dumb. How could one get what one didn’t bargain for?

I went home that evening down in the mouth and tried as my parents could to make my posting sound like a picnic; I still felt sick with the whole idea, I felt like a goat that's being dragged to the slaughter house but leashed my temper. I just had to, of what use is crying over spilt milk anyway.

A day after the opening of camp, I boarded a bus directly to The Sunshine state-a mistake I soon realised. 

 

After coughing and dying many times on transit, the bus safely brought me into the belly of the state at a quarter past five. I breathed a sigh of relief and stretched my legs like a cock at the early hours of the day, thinking I have finally arrived until I was told that I needed to take another bus to the camp site. Oh Christ! I should have boarded a bus going straight to the camp village-Ignorance should eat a chunk of the blame.

Finally, I arrived at the NYSC permanent Orientation Camp. With the flurry of activities, I didn’t need a soothsayer to tell me I was in the right place but I was not sure if I was there at the right time.

After the inspection at the gate by some impassive police officers, I ushered myself to the multipurpose hall for my clearance. A mammoth crowd had already gathered. I certainly should have come earlier. They were all carrying forms from one queue to the other and then my admission days flickered at the back of my eyes. Those file carrying days. And to think that we actually did that holding our head high.

I finished part of my clearance and when the day wrapped up I laid my tired bones in the open hall with countless other corps members, many thanks to my mosquito net but no thanks to the NYSC officials for the unacceptable reception. Didn’t they know I was a prince? Before you start asking questions answer this. If God is the king of all mankind, what am I?

I met a friend the second day who offered a helping hand. Duff didn’t have a normal spine, but a firm reed of goodness. He took me to an empty bunk in his hostel-somebody had redeployed on arrival. My bunk was the top bed close to the door and the mosquitoes had a field day on my body. They were monstrous and I remember calling them Bokoharamic mosquitoes because despite how much I tried to ward them off they still persisted.

My kits were ironically one of the best in camp. The tailors helped me reshape the trousers and jackets but all my efforts to get a replacement for my over-sized jungle boot met brick walls. How on earth could my small feet be given a 46-sized jungle boot? What on earth were they thinking? I couldn’t get anybody of that shoe size for exchange so I had to improvise-after all they say when the desirable becomes unattainable, the attainable becomes desirable. I bought a bathroom slipper and wore it inside the boot. I will not forget the experience in all hurry.

I didn’t bother about the general food, Mammy market smiled to the bank from my pocket. But one day I decided to save my ₦200. The breakfast was bread and tea-one of my favourite breakfast meal. A lady in her late thirties served me a prodigal ration and a loaf of bread with a smile on her face.

I sat at the edge of my bunk mate’s bed when I arrived in the room and opened my flask beaming on all sides with smiles. What I saw made my eyes twitch. A film of one colour gathered like a family on one side of my flask while the other family collected themselves on the other side. I disregarded the tell-tale sign and took a sip from my spoon. Immediately, I covered it for them. “Who send me?” Even prisoners in decent climes don’t get it this ugly. Later that evening my stomach began rumbling and I out-rightly located the john but I was stopped by flies jumping up and down like manic cheerleaders when I opened the door. Everything inside me shifted, shimmered and settled. That was my knee-jack-reaction. I held my nose and walked away like a defeated boxer.

Rumours made rounds of girls of easy virtue who their faces gaudily bright with makeup in the day time went about in the night time dishing out free love. The rumour gained currency when some of them were caught in the lurid sexual encounters and automatically whipped out of the camp by the no nonsense state coordinator.

 

The other things are details.

Good as the idea behind establishing the National Youth Service Scheme is, there are obvious areas of worry and uncertainty and this calls for urgent reform of the scheme. I read that the scheme was setup by decree 24 of 1973 and modified by decree 51 of June 1993. For crying out loud this is 2014. Change they say is constant and still remains the only constant decimal in global calculus. So, if the scheme is still appreciated then it needs to be reformed for our common good.