NYSC: BACK WHEN...

Camp pictures are on the mobile :(. This is still Kogi :)

A recap of 21 days at Asaya Kabba, Kogi State. It were pretty. And written just about a year ago. 

ONE QUESTION

How the hell did “as you were” ever become “ajuwaya”? And now, I have to tolerate people saying ajuwaya in my direction whenever I don that uniform or half of it anyways. Add that to being called corper, copper, manganese and molybdenum and I am well and truly pissed off.

IN PURSUIT OF BLEAKNESS

When even the NYSC officials that are supposed to pysch you up affirm to you that the state you are in is bleak, well, give up. Or not. Add to it the “infestation” of this particular camp with South-East and South-South types with their headache-inducing language, employed more regularly, alarmingly, than our supposed lingua franca. Give up now. The Yorubas, those bastions of knowledge and English (tongue-in-cheek), seemed the only ones interested in the continuation of the unity experiment, even if your brothers and sisters from other tribes will gladly sell you, in your presence. In my platoon, a few Yoruba girls had to take affirmative action and resort to good ol’ Yoruba. Of course I was tongue-tied, being that I was the type you would label “forming”. It wasn’t my fault. My Yoruba isn’t as smooth as I would like and I didn’t want no Ilesa girl making fun of me. I wasn’t also the sort to resort to bickering over ethnicity, at this stage of my life.

AWARDS CRAZE

Almost every lecture we had included the introduction of the word “award”. Isn’t anything ever done for the sake of it anymore, or have Nigerians been reduced to people who always have to fight for a prize? We even had an MDG type with questionable diction and vocabulary who began to exhibit his one million awards, as if the pieces of laminated paper were the solutions to the world’s problems. You guessed it, I wasn’t the least impressed.

ADEOLA OPAYELE

On Deola’s post on the AISLAR ’10 group on Facebook I commented, “The proverbial farm of the child’s father…” Apparently, Deola thought her Niger State camp was the only camp where social activities took place every night. What did she think the rest of us were doing in other states – cultivating farms in that period? Tres amusing.

OLD FARTS AND JUST FATS

I know 45 years old people are sometimes referred to as youth. I disagree with this notion at least until I’m 45 and I’m struggling to accept middle age. Why anyone over 30 even bothers with the NYSC is beyond me. What is so fun about the NYSC that any person over the age of 30 with two brain cells to rub together still struggles to make it? I know all about people struggling to be educated and all, but seriously, there’s something called a certificate of exemption. I have personally seen a man I’m sure is definitely over 40 wearing the same white over white I was wearing. You come to camp and then you think you are above the law. Who send you? Better run your ass off now or your old ass is frog-jumping till thy kingdom come, old fart! You can commit adultery or fornication at home. Leave us proper youth to… no, that won’t come out right.

I also did not carry a portable balance, but the weight of the women here… ah… I didn’t see too many pretty girls either. Was it the regimen? Was it my eyes? Or was the absence of scanties telling?

OBS (ORIENTATION BROADCASTING SERVICE)

O bull’s shit. Nuff said.

OF MARRIED WOMEN AND COITUS

You’re a woman and married. It’s hardly been a week in camp. Yet, you have shacked up and been caught already, in a bathroom. I really don’t care if you were getting drilled; what I care about is; how the hell did you let yourself be caught? The 11th Commandment for Nature’s Sakes! That done, why the hell will you be shacking up with someone who isn’t your husband? Who forced you to get married? Why was it in those awful Kogi camp bathrooms, why oh why? Why couldn’t you go out of camp and find a hotel room? Why didn’t you wait till you were out of camp when nobody would give a damn if you had the whole state transiting through your lady business? Now, you’ve been caught, and your husband will come get your dismissal letter. I’d drop you in the stretch of road with the thickest forest and leave you there – my brand of divorce.