The one about serving Nigeria

I like writing.

It honestly took me a while to come to this conclusion. I have not been able to write for some time, because of time and I realized I miss my own writing. Imagine!!! Is this the self-love of whom you speak? If it is, I am absolutely in love and I stan.

I have been holding unto this gist for some time now but I think it is about time I wrote it out.

One day at work, we were all casually gisting in the office, when one of my colleagues randomly mentioned how 4 people sit on an Okada (motor bike) for a trip. I had to ask her to repeat herself, because there was no way I heard that right. It turns out I did hear her right and this happened in Ebonyi State where she served as a youth corper. For those who do now know i.e my international elite readers, Nigerian university graduates are mandated to spend one year after graduation in a (different) state of the country serving the nation under a scheme called the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).

For the sake of this post, let’s call my colleague Linda. Linda proceeds to give me the gist of her experience as a corper in Ebonyi. First of all, she served far away from town. According to her, when fellow corps members and herself were being taken to their lodge, she believed they were being kidnapped. They drove through a pine forest of some sort before they finally got to their destination. Secondly, the village had no light at all. I mean not like NEPA did not bring them power or anything o, the place was not connected to electricity at all.

Linda said, that period was a time of good spiritual growth for her. There was no light to charge phones, they usually have to charge their phone somewhere for N20.00. They only went to their places of primary assignment twice in a week because the distance was crazy. This means they were stuck in the lodge for about 5 days a week, without access to light and minimal internet connection. Tell me why this will not allow you time to speak to God? Linda would spend hours praying because she really had nothing else to do. She prayed sotey she began to see visions and dream dreams like Joseph did. lmaoooo. In fact, she had enough time to draw up a 10 year plan for her life.

The bike drama usually happens on their way back from town. Apparently, 2 people sit at the back plus the driver then another passenger sits on the fuel tank in front of the driver. She actually showed us a picture because none of us believed her. The brain-bursting bit is that people actually hustle for the front seat. Why will 4 people be on one bike tori olorun??? More importantly, why do you want to sit on a fuel tank in a country that has no emergency response to anything? Sigh. The whole trip in itself is N100.00. I asked if it was about fare splitting but she said the Okada riders actually rarely even carry one person even if you offered to pay. Sigh, and I thought I suffered during my own NYSC year.

Then there is Solomon. He is another colleague of mine that served in Rivers State. His own gist actually came to light when I asked him if he voted in the last elections. He swore vehemently that he will never vote in Nigeria elections. As the voltron that I am, I was all over his ass telling him bla bla yen yen, you have to vote.

He said and I quote “Femi, I have seen firsthand the way elections are conducted in Nigeria and I can assure you your votes do not count”. My interest was obviously piqued and I asked for the tea which I will now relay to you. Sooooo in the local government where Solomon served, they had a guy contesting for what I believe was the House of Reps position. The corps members obviously, were the manpower the state and INEC would use in conducting the elections. This man comes and offers to pay the corpers N25, 000 to help rig the votes in his favor. There was a rival candidate that offered N50, 000.00 for the same favor to be accorded him.

The day of the election came, and the corpers that were smart collected money from both candidates and ran to town to lodge till the election was over. My colleague was obviously not that smart or we will not be sharing this story today. He took money from the cheaper candidate, and he intended to keep his end of the bargain. The day came and the corpers all assembled at the INEC office to collect the election materials. They did and were on their way to the voting centre in a bus hired by INEC for their use. Suddenly they heard something that sounded like a stone hit their bus. It was not stone, it was gunshots. Solomon told me he dived under the skirts of a woman in the bus. That was his brilliant idea of escaping being hit by a bullet. He said the girl still hates him till today. She on the other hand covered herself with a laptop bag. Guys, he was giving me this gist and I was laughing like a goat in the office. I did not blame them because I strongly doubt my brain will work if I am being shot at.

The short version of this story is that their bus was hijacked and they were driven to the house of the opposition candidate. His house was manned by soldiers, the same soldiers that should have been protecting the innocent corps members. At the location, they were given the ballot papers and told to work towards the result of their polling unit which was also pre- provided. They spent all day thumb printing ballot papers and ensured they stamped the given number to make up the pre-determined results before they were finally released. I know Nigeria is crazy but this is a higher level of graced corruption I did not think was possible.

I listened to people’s experiences during NYSC and it dawned on me that I had it really good. I served in Lagos and the most I had to contend with was dirty toilets and the annoyance of early morning drills. We even had Tekno, Iyanya and Tiwa Savage perform at one of our night parties. Apparently I got a good deal and should have been more grateful. My worst memory of the whole NYSC year was the last clearance I did. The coordinator of my local government refused to sign me off because he was a demon. I begged him for about 12 hours. Later my friend left his work place to beg on my behalf before he budged.

Some of my friends that served on the mainland in Lagos told me how their clearance was done with provisions. The number of signatures you missed determined what you were buying. The mad ting is that the officers at the local government were the ones selling the items at the entrance of the office. So say you missed 10 signatures and your levy was a carton of juice, you buy it from them and then they put the same carton of juice back on the stand for the next victim to buy. Round tripping toh quality. I had to stan hard. Imagine selling one carton of maltina to 300 people, lmaoooo.

Did you serve your country, let me know your worst and best experiences for the mandatory 1 year.