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| NYSC Orientation Camp |
Prior to when I received my call-up number, I was told Lagos NYSC camp, Abuja NYSC camp and Port Harcourt NYSC
camp are more exciting than others so I made plans to influence my posting to one of them. I typed ‘NYSC Lagos Camp’ on
Google search bar and an image of
Olamide appeared among female corp members.
Damn!
This might be my only opportunity to see Olamide “Badoo”, I thought. Lagos camp was it! That evening, I asked my parents for N30000 to influence my posting.
What followed next was a three hours sermon on “The implications of altering your destiny”
My parents were not going to give me the money and their decision was final.
I didn’t let that perturb me.
The next day, I cleared my account for the NYSC runs boy.
Finally call-up letters were out. While my friends scrambled
to the cafe to know their fate, I didn’t bother.
I sat back at home like a boss, observing things as long as I
was concerned, my name was among those posted to
Lagos.
Two days before camp was due to open, my proud self
bounced into the closest cybercafe to get my Lagos callup
letter.
The last thing I remembered was seeing my name along
with the state code AK.
I had been duped!
Before I could say ‘OLAMIDE’, I found myself on the floor.
The shock had thrown me off balance, My hard-earned 30K
was gone with the winds.
(Olamide, you owe me 30k!)
The happy-humble people posted to Lagos
had come to help me up
Then came the sympathies from them.
“I heard they have beautiful girls in Akwaibom, and they
know how to cook”
“You might even get an Akwa ibom girlfriend”
“Akwa ibom has the hottest funspots in Nigeria”
“Mish looks like Olamide and he might come there
to sing “Akwa ibom Ayaya” for you guys”
Nonsense!
FIRST DAY IN CAMP
Two days later I stood miserably at the gate of Nsit
Atai, NYSC Camp, Akwa ibom State.
I met some soldiers searching a long queue of prospective
corp members.
When it got to my turn, they emptied my box and began
making jest of me when they found garri and kulikuli.
Luckily for me, one NYSC official took pity on me and
assisted me with the registration process. It would be an
insult to titus sardine If I say 46 human beings were
bundled like sardines into one kirikiri looking room because
nowadays, there is only
one and a half fish relaxing comfortably inside titus tin.
We had no good toilet. They didn’t care whether we gave a
shit or not. All pun intended.
No provision was made for a bathroom too so we had to
wake up as early as 3:30am to shower on an open field.
THE CLIQUES
The first thing I noticed were the foreign students clique
with different real and fake accents. Even graduates of
University of Ghana had accents too.
Houegbe North American University graduates
had American accents too. The funniest of them all was one
girl from AbiaState University of Technology.
In a bid to be among, she had what some group of boys
called a Chinese accent.
Who knows, she must have acquired it the day she had
dinner at a Chinese restaurant.
THE PARADE
The first day I attended the parade, I heard a soldier
telling some corp members.
“Bounce that leg harder! No be your leg again! Na
the Federal Government get am”
Out of fear, I ran inside the bush to hide but
unfortunately for me, one soldier caught me and he
made me do frog jump for twenty minutes. When I
was done, I became temporarily crippled.
I borrowed a walking stick from one fake crippled
(we had a lot of them in our camp) and staggered to
join the Orientation Broadcasting Service.
On getting there, I was rejected by the head of OBS
because of my yoruba tongue, and I couldn’t present news
in a fake accent.
Where the hell was I suppose to download one from?
MY PLATOON
We celebrities (yes, I’m one) in Akwa ibom State NYSC
Camp tried to live a lowkey life but you know what
they say about supernovas? LOL
In my case my oversized uniform stood me out!
Platoon Officer wanted me to represent the platoon
in Mr Macho but I refused with reasons that I can’t wear
just pants with my amusement pack ( since am not having 6
packs) like a paraded suspect in front of over 2,000 corp
members.
She got irked and threatened to post me to some place
where I won’t see tarred road for a year.
CAMP KITCHEN
I sneaked into the kitchen one day and found a huge
pot of beans swimming in a mixture of oil and water.
I peeked at the bucket of watery tea and it looked
like the milk they put was keeping malice with the
hot water. Literally, they both refused to ‘mingle’.
I instantly became a food rights activists with talks
of
“How can they serve us this thing when we have no
toilets?”
”Do they realise some of us are first class graduates?”
There was a wastage of food that evening as most
people rejected the beans.
That night, our coordinator assembled every corp
member and asked why three quarters of us
didn’t utilize our meal ticket.
She pleaded for answers.
I and some other busybodies raised our hands and
complained campfood is shitty.
To cut the long story short, we were made to sit in
the open field till 1am for that statement.
MAMMY MARKET
Mami market was my place of refuge. It solved my
problem of food and fun. I just endured till evening
Went to “mammy” grooved, set more p
Till d soldiers came as usual to kill our Joy
By 10:30pm with their sharp sounding beagle.
If ur familiar wit d scheme, after you must have spent all d
money u came to camp wit,
Close to the end,
They butter ur bread by paying u 19800
Which if you are not careful, will finish in Mammy market
REDEPLOYMENT
Many corp members applied for deployment to
different states on health grounds. So many of them
had come prepared with letters from hospitals,
faking different sicknesses.
They were desperate!
One particular guy lied early madness runs in his
family. Say what?
I also wanted to get a fake asthma report but my
father called and threatened to disown me if I wish
evil upon myself.
The only real illness I suffered from was sleeping
sickness. (I could kill for an extra five minutes of
sleep every night)
LIFE OUTSIDE CAMP
Last day of camp we were issued our posting letters.
My place of primary assignment was one bush ( PS; bush
not village sef) secondary school under Nsit Ibom LGA. My
greatest challenge was where to get hotel accomodation for
the during our PPA registration process. Almost
everyone in camp were plagued with the same
problem.
I eventually found and joined Deeper life corpers’ family
house. There, I was handed a list of rules and regulations.
1. Only English language and speaking in tongues
allowed.
2. No sleeveless shirt or trousers.
3. No smiling with girls anyhow.
4. Compulsory 5am devotion and 9pm devotion.
5. You must be fully ‘kitted’ on your way to the
bathroom. No tongues allowed.
Literally, I went from one regimented place to
another. No Etisalat, MTN and Airtel service too. Only Glo
ruled…
On getting to my PPA, it was the ugliest place I have ever
been. I begged the school authorities to reject me.
My pleas fell on deaf ears. I was allocated a seat in the
staff room of the School, That’s how I have been spending
my NYSC days assisting some Akwa Ibom women to break
periwinkle and wash dog meat…
Love 2 hear from u….
Your Favourite,
Ugwu Biggz Kahchie
@ugwubiggz
kingbiggz@gmail.com
2BB47FD1
07068007622 (whatsapp)
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