Slims!
Great job. Loving your blog!
Okay!
So I served from March 2004 - Feb 2005 in Oyo State as a Batch A Ajuwaya. First off, let me state that I never wanted to serve but since NYSC is a so-called pre-requisite that opens doors in Nigeria (I wish!), I forced myself to go for and endure the one year of “torture” that is called NYSC. So...where to start...where to start...hmmm...I think I’ll just limit this to my camp experience.
Let's start on the first day of service ie the first day of camp. I left Lagos around 9am for Ibadan en route the Oyo state NYSC orientation camp located in Iseyin, Iseyin Local Government Area with a female friend who had also been posted to the same state. I think it was March 16, not too sure now but it was a tuesday, that I can remember. After an uneventful ride, we got into Ibadan mid-morning and the bus we had travelled in took us to the park where we would then board another vehicle headed for Iseyin. There were other new corpers posted to Oyo state already there and more arrived as we waited to fill up the car going to Iseyin, a Peugeot 505 estate car or like we call it in 9ja, station wagon. I remember the pretty girl in white sitting on the row infront of me...she turned out to be married with two sons. Tough luck! By the way, she later became one of the Call-up-Party squad during parade so I obviously wasn’t the only one who thought she was hot. lol
I digress...the car eventually filled up and we left for Iseyin. Man, you haven't travelled a good road in 9ja until you travel the highway going to Iseyin and I mean it. What is mind boggling is the fact that Iseyin is meant to be the interior yet the road was super. So after a long journey in which we kept asking the driver if we hadn't arrived yet ("Are we there yet?" lol) we got into Iseyin and were pleasantly surprised to find a mini town when we were expecting a village where nothing functioned. Since most of us in the car were new corpers, the driver took us to the NYSC orientation camp, a secondary school in the heart of the village. Ah...things were definitely looking up. So we came down from the car and as we were grabbing our gear from the trunk some primary school pupils on their way home started talking urgently to us in yoruba (I'm Ibo & don't understand much of the Yoruba language, apart from the most essential words/sentences, like "Ebim kpami" - ie "I am hungry" - my girlfriend calls me a longer-throat, I wonder why?!).
Anyway, back to the primary school pupils; we tried to make out what they were saying and eventually figured out that they were telling us that school was no longer the NYSC orientation camp. Brrrr! After much haggling, we got back into the car and made the driver take us to the new camp.
Na then, the real journey begin.
Bye bye good roads, welcome potholes and enough dust. It took us another 30mins or so to get to the new camp, a “renovated” company with its living quarters etc, which was being used for the first time with my set. At the gate, there were policemen searching a long queue of Corpers. This was around 1pm. We joined the queue and when it got to my turn, the policeman searching my things seized my hair clipper, for reasons I cannot remember but I assure you, it was a lousy one. I explained to him that I needed it to shave regularly and after quite a detailed argument he released it.
Schwuuuim! Strike one for the Ajuwayas!
Ajuwaya: 1 – Olokpa: 0...Arsenal for...oops sorry...Ajuwaya for life!
After the search, we got into the camp proper and joined another very long queue of Corpers going through the registration process. Apparently, some people had been there since 6am in the morning. Some had even arrived the day before...una house dey chase una?!
We began the loooooong process of registration; photocopy this, photocopy that, fill this form, fill that form, which school did you graduate from, bla bla bla. I read the blog about things you need when going to camp. Please get everything that you were asked to photocopy on that list. You’ll need them and more!
Ahhh...I have just remembered a very important fact I skipped. In preparation for the Camp, I had bought this nice looking ajebo leather travel bag with which I was hoping to effeziate or in more recent terms, ginger my swagger so I was looking forward to camp. I wake up on the morning of camp, get ready and pick up my packed aje bag to go downstairs and the first handle cuts. Hm! Okay o! I start climbing down the stairs and the second handle cuts. By the time I’m downstairs in the courtyard, I’m carrying my “aje” travel bag under my arm. Aba made!
God bless 9ja sha.
So it is with this bag that I am moving from one spot to the other filling forms and running to photocopy documents and what have you, when someone is not watching over it. Mind you I hadn’t eaten a bite all day. By 4pm, I had finished the first part of registration and had joined another long queue trying to secure accommodation. It was here that I met my camp friend and brother, Chris Onyemah (Sempe, where you dey? Your phone numbers and email no dey go through & you are not on facebook?!)
So we are in this queue and this funny dude standing behind me (Chris) just keeps on cracking me up with his jokes. We stood in that line forever and it wasn’t even looking like it would get to our turn. By this time, it was getting late. Chris and I broke out from the queue as per sharp guys and approached one of the camp officials, Mr. Richard Ologundudu to help out. While we were with him, another camp official approached him and explained that he had an immediate problem. Apparently, the first meal of camp, dinner had been brought but there was no one to help with organizing it and he needed volunteers. Mr. Ologundudu turned to us and asked if we could help out. Truth be told, I wasn’t feeling that one bit. I just wanted to get my accommodation and find something to eat. This was past 6pm and it was almost dark and I still hadn’t eaten + I wasn’t sure of where to sleep that night. A piece of advice here for prospective Corpers. If you can’t eat before you leave home on Camp morning, abeg BUY GALA OR BEEFIE WITH LA CASERA or whatever drink u see on the road. If not, you fit no chop until night. You have been warned.
Anyway, Chris turns to me and says why not & I’m like what the heck? So we follow the camp official to where the food is (I think I’m beginning to understand why she calls me a longer-throat!).
We stood at the head of the queue (by now enough students were already waiting for their food meeen!). It was our duty to sign their meal tickets before they could be served. We did that for that first night and for every other meal for the rest of camp along with seeing to the orderly serving of the food. We became quite popular in camp as the “food prefects” amongst many other yabs. Trust 9ja youth. After the meal, which incidentally I didn’t eat because I couldn’t stand the sight and odour (Let me stop here to add that I didn’t eat much of camp food except on the days we had jollof rice or anything that included stew or the days that Corpers cooked. The Yorubas sabi when it comes to jollof rice & stew! I was always representing though, once it was bread time but I couldn’t stand ewedu ati amala and have still not eaten it up till now), we went back to hustling for our accommodation which takes me once again back to the earlier mentioned blog, where the author says you shouldn’t put your hope in the camp soldiers etc...extend it to include NYSC officials too because you will find out that you are even more connected than some of them while in camp. So please when in camp don’t do anything with the hope of “dem go post me go state capital.” My people, it’s just not on! Besides if everybody go state capital who go go the interior?
Do things from an open mind with the intent to serve mankind after all it is called, NYServiceC.
By now, it was dark and we still hadn’t made headway with our accommodation. While we were still figuring out what to do, a truck like a lorry but not the conventional lorry rode into camp and the driver started shouting that those who hadn’t gotten accommodation should get into the open back so he could take them back to the other camp in town where we had first thought was the camp when we arrived Iseyin earlier. Chris and I quickly hustled our selves & gear (said handless aje bag representing) into the back of the lorry and when it had filled to capacity we rode back through that bumpy road to town (actually it was now looking like GRA and no more just a mini town!) By now I was thinking of all the garri & afang soup I used to make shakara for back at home...how I wished for even the worst tasting one of them so I could eat it and lick my plates dry right in the back of that lorry. My people, hunger na bad thing o.
We got to the school cum camp and quickly settled in to their standard dormitory. No students were around. After I had made myself comfy, I went into town to see if I could buy another travel bag and find somewhere to eat some meaningful food. I’m sure if you had asked me my name then, I would have said, “nri” – food in the Igbo language. This was around 8ish - 9. Chris went somewhere else. Surprisingly the village was still alive and bustling. I really must stop calling it a village because it was more of a mini town. I eventually found a good enough bag, practical and none of that ajebo nonsense, anymore, thank you very much! The seller was an Ibo guy. Man, we are everywhere. For prospective Ibo Corpers or Ibo-loving Corpers, no matter where you are posted in this country, have this one hope in your mind; you will always find and hook up with Ibo people and an Ibo community and you can take this to the bank. We are everywhere. Other Corpers over the years have confirmed this fact. Anyway, I asked him where I could find good food to eat and he directed me to another Ibo woman’s canteen about 10mins walk from his shop. I got there and most of her food was finished but she had ofe olugbu (bitterleaf soup) and bush meat. Chei, come and see flex! If I remember right, I had two extra helpings. No be God?!
With a very content and full stomach (poor bushmeat), I went back to my dormitory, had a nice bath with the pipe-borne water that was flowing in the compound (I tell you, this was paradise indeed) fetched water for my bath the next morning, packed my stuff into the new bag and turned in for the night. We had been told that we could stay on here if we didn’t secure accommodation at the permanent camp but Chris and I had made up our minds that we must be in the permanent camp where all the action was. Corpers kept on arriving throughout the night. One of the girls who slept in our room and who came in quite late was attacked by armed robbers along with some other Corpers in the bus they were travelling in. No one was harmed but their stuff was stolen. What a way to begin NYSC...the things we suffered for NYSC. Na wa o.
So the next morning, we packed up all our stuff including our buckets which we had bought the previous night and when the lorry came for us we jumped into the back and bid farewell to paradise for good. Some Corpers stayed back there for the rest of the orientation and some mornings by the time they arrived for parade they were late and got drilled.
Strike two against Otondo Corpers!
I left the aje bag under my bed. I wonder whatever became of it?
Back at the permanent site, our mission was to secure accommodation as fast as possible and when it began to look like it was going to be another uphill task, Chris and I went in search of spoilt bunk beds, fixed them up and set them up on the balcony outside one of the male hostels. I think I’ll upload pictures so you can all see for yourselves.
My people, we slept on those beds, OUTSIDE IN THE COLD for the three weeks of camp. I broke down with fever one night (too much activity; I was “food prefect” along with Chris, I was my platoon’s social representative – by the way, Chris and I were in the same platoon: 6 - and by the second week of camp, I had been made platoon leader, in absentia but that story is for later) and guess which night it decided to rain? That same night. So I’m shivering and rain is pattering on me and I’m so messed up, I just blank out everything and go back to sleep in the rain. Man must survive, abi?
On that balcony we had about four double bunks i.e. 8 occupants. Let me see how many of their names I can remember. Of course there was Chris, then Ehimen Astell, Jude, Victor, Dr. Inyang Bassey, my other camp friend who because I always went to the clinic to see him and I was involved in food matters, Corpers and NYSC staff thought I was a medical doctor and took to calling me “doctor”. Till we left camp some of them never accepted that I wasn’t one. Na dem sabi! The engineering I read for school don do me.
So, accommodation finally out of the way, we got down to the next thing on the agenda; getting our khakis and footwear. By this time the authorities had realized that they had a serious problem on their hands, accommodation wise (my batch had 1,600 Corpers)and they had begun to construct a bamboo hall to augment female accommodation. So, yes, some female Corpers slept in a bamboo house with the red earth as their floor. I wonder what it looked like when it rained? My female friend I went to camp with got decent (under the circumstances) accommodation so she didn’t have to sleep in the bamboo house.
Back to the khakis. The thing was, after standing in the queue for ever, you would be issued with a pair of khaki pants, a khaki shirt, 2 white t - shirts, 2 pairs of white shorts, 2 pairs of white socks with 2 green stripes representing the national colours, a pair of jungle boots and a pair of white tennis shoes. The jungle boots were quite popular especially when we began to wear them with our white t-shirts and shorts during sports. As far as camp was concerned that was the hottest combo. You hadn’t “baffed up” until you wore your jungle boots with your whites. You wan try?!
Once again, I refer to the blog on list of things to buy. That list says 4 t shirts. That’s ok but I went 4 better and had 8 white t – shirts, 2 white shorts, 2 pairs of green stripped socks and a pair of khaki-coloured pants of my own in addition to what we were given in camp. Mind you, some camps are very strict about their khakis. My camp was free somehow but woe be-tide you, should you be found in denim pants apart from the weekend. One evening, though, our camp Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM), the second in command to the camp commandant, saw me wearing my unofficial khakis and sent me to the guard room pronto! While I was still pulling my shoes to get into the guard room, one of the platoon commandants came for me and told me I was free to go simply because I was a platoon commandant. Who says position doesn’t pay?
Let me quickly explain what the guardroom looks like. It was a room that had a tiled floor and every so often water was poured on the floor so that at any given time the inmates could be found standing or sitting (depending on how long they had been incarcerated) in a pool of water. And you don’t go in wearing shoes. I don’t know what other guardrooms in other camps looked like but that was what I narrowly missed.
Eventually, I got my NYSC gear and another problem ensued. My shoes were too small so I had to look for someone who had my size and whose size I had, a trade-by-batter of sorts. A common occurrence during those first few days of camp. I eventually exchanged both shoes for the right sizes but the biggest size (eleven) was still tight and I wear eleven. I had a horrible experience wearing those shoes for one year. NYSC, please take into consideration the fact that there are people whose feet size is bigger than eleven. As a matter of fact, those shoes were not eleven, even if eleven was engraved on them.
Up next was to reduce the khakis to size and that was quickly accomplished at the mammy market. Brisk business goes on there. One of my favourite spots was the bookshop where sadly, I had read most of the books or already owned them. lol
My main favourite spot was the Ibo woman’s stall where quality and I don’t use this term lightly, food was sold. That’s probably where all my money went and honestly, the food was cheap so I didn’t even get to spend much. As a matter of fact, I remember that at my place of primary assignment, Lagelu LGA, I paid for my accommodation (six thousand naira for a room for a year @ the corper’s lodge, shout out to mama Patience! I wonder how many children she has now?The woman was prolific, God abeg o!) with money I went to camp with and still had the money we were given in camp untouched. Yes, it’s true; you can go to camp and have a nice time including enough mmanya for all my shayo-loving prospective Corpers without blowing all your doe and running into debts. Like I always say, remember who you are and where you come from. The people you are trying to impress no send you, take it from me.
So now, we were ready for our first parade during the swearing in ceremony which we prepared for in 2 days roughly. It was rough but those soldiers knocked us into shape in record time. Men, make I no lie, I enjoyed the march past well, well, both during swearing in and passing out from camp and one year later when we passed out from the NYSC programme. I marched on all three occasions and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Everyone to their poison, abi? Like I said, Chris and I were in the same platoon along with Dr. Inyang Bassey. I remember the day we were grouped into platoons and after the grouping our platoon commandant, a soldier by the name of Mohammed, a quiet man and a gentleman (no be all soldier be agbero), asked for who would be our squad leader and the politicians sprang into action. Sharp, sharp, campaigning was completed and the leader and a female assistant emerged. PDP has nothing on those Corper politicians! lol
Anyway, to cut an already long story short, the weeks progressed slowly. Three weeks can seem like a life time when you are in camp. By the second week, we were into competitions i.e. drama, cultural dance, cooking and sport. One day the cultural group of my platoon went to practice in the bush, actually it wasn’t a bush per say, it was a cashew plantation, a lovely place but quite a distance from the main area of the camp (we had been asked by Mohammed to play truant and skip afternoon parade while he turned a blind eye, bad guy!).
While we were there practicing, parade ended and my platoon members who went for parade came to join us with the news that Mohammed had “impeached” and fired the squad leader and his female assistant and replaced them with yours truly and Ms. Ejiro Uvoh. I became depressed because first, I didn’t need the political agro associated with that kind of appointment + I already had enough responsibilities on my plate what with the food organizing and being my platoon’s social rep. I’m writing as it comes to me so I just remembered the final member of my group who at anytime the four of us could always be seen together, Victor (Yobo) Madumere. It was him, Chris, Inyang and I. I really should upload some pictures with this blog.
Shout outs to Linda Uwakwe, the biggest chick in camp (but the softest in heart) who just brought her own khakis (deep green and not the standard carton colour) with her because none of the standard issue would fit her. I remember how she would just swagger over to the middle of the parade ground and sit down because she wasn’t in the mood to jog or exercise. Approach her naa, if you get 2 heads. You no dey see?! Everyone just left her alone including the camp commandant. Joshua (Kpom! Kporokotom!) Ochonma, Iyayi Edobor (now Iyayi Edobor - Oludapo), Ambrose Nnaji, Akeem O. (007) Oyesina, Lanre Afolabi, Kelechi Ihemereze, Nwando Ikpeze who I hooked up with again recently on Facebook, Lanre Ilori, Vivian Okoyeh (Okoye with an H!),Niyi Olowu who I hooked up with recently again on Facebook, Jummai Joseph (my nemesis in camp, al quaeda can learn a thing or two from her!), Emma Omoregie, Miss Uzunma Uma (now Uzunma Anyianuka) who won Miss NYSC, Kenneth Ugwuoke, who incidentally I hooked up with again after NYSC on a regular basis. A pleasant surprise. Big ups to Mukhtar Abdulaziz. And finally, Uloaku Ojiaku, my friend whom I went to camp with from Lagos - my banker throughout camp. She should have been at the helm of affairs at Oceanic Bank! These people made camp bearable beyond measure.
Okay, now that we are done with the shout outs, back to the wrap up. So here I am, with a responsibility that I wished I didn’t have but una sabi as soldier life be, “an orzer is an orzer!”...for my non 9ja speaking readers – an order is an order. So there was no way out of it. For the next 2 weeks, I combined organizing meals along with Chris (who represented our platoon during the Mr. NYSC competition and came 2nd or 3rd, I forget which), handling the social affairs of my platoon and being platoon leader. It was quite challenging but I had a great assistant and a great platoon behind me so the days went by with minimal stress. We were 3rd in the football completion and also 3rd in drama or dance, I think it was dance. I have a picture I like very much where on behalf of our platoon (6th Platoon, Batch A, Oyo State, 2004) I am presented with a plaque which we returned to camp officials almost immediately after the photo op. Dem no wan hear say...lol
Oh, I remember the gala night or bonfire night, I can’t place which one it was but I know it was a night we were allowed to stay up late and party and when we had all eventually turned in and were getting the much needed sleep before daybreak, the bugle went off. I remember thinking even as I got up in the cold, that morning sure arrived quickly and that that day was going to be a long one only for the commandant’s voice to start filtering into my consciousness, “You are all lazy! Report to the parade ground now!”
It was a damn fire drill, of all nights.
Platoon 6 didn‘t come first, that I can assure you. Now that I think of it, I wonder the kind of hangovers some of the guys & girls probably had the next morning. Hehehe.
Gala night? By 1am, I had left the venue and gone to bed jo! To blazes with being squad leader!
So come passing out day and people are carrying long faces because they are about to be separated from their new found loves. Let me stop here to say that it will amaze you, then again, maybe it won’t, what some married men & women did in camp but we shall not dampen the mood here with such tales. For prospective Corpers, nothing you see in camp should amaze you. It won’t be the first time it’s happening. Then again some of you will end up doing same or worse in camp, abi? And of course some of you who will read this probably are the people I’m talking about who did ncha (strictly for my Igbo speaking peeps) in camp.
So it’s time to collect our primary assignment postings and we are in the queue yet again. Prospective Corpers, una go stand for queue tire so better get used to the idea now.
People start collecting their letters and it is so funny to see the reactions. People who didn’t do anything to influence their posting are getting choice locations, some that paid to influence theirs are also getting the good locations they paid for, others who paid good sums of money to influence theirs are being sent to purgatory, oh what a mixture of emotions! Some are laughing and hugging each other, others are cursing and swearing in such choice language that would make sailors blush and the very emotional ones are bursting into tears. Others are calm and you can’t tell what’s going on in their minds. I fell into this last category. You see, I had been posted to Lagelu LGA to teach in the community grammer school located there. On one front I was disappointed because I had wished to practice engineering during my one year of service specifically with FANMILK in Ibadan and the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) had visited us and given us high hopes that we would be taken care of. So much for taking care of us! On the other hand, I was happy because Lagelu is roughly 30mins from Ibadan so I wasn’t too far away from the hub of action. Let me add here that it was in Ibadan that I first walked into a Mr. Biggs outlet and they had no electricity be it NEPA or their own generator. You couldn’t buy ice cream because it was just that, cream! Chris, Yobo and Inyang were posted further away. Uloaku was posted to IITA Ibadan.
Anyway, I collect my letter, hide my emotions, comfort my disappointed friends, congratulate my happy ones, say goodbye to some that I don’t see again until one year later on passing out day and some that I still haven’t seen up till now (Life is such a fleeting experience) carry my kanya and get into the bus that was sent by Lagelu LGA to pick up their new Corpers and head off to start my next phase of the NYSC!
