Memoir of a 9ja Corper

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While the saying “Whatever has a beginning, has an end” is debatable, it is mostly true. This blog, which started some months back, has come to its natural end. Will there be another blog? (No doubt – because there always will be things worth writing on.) So, here’s the concluding part of my NYSC story.

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The breeze was hot and the sun shone strongly on the tar, as the bike I was on turned and descended into Olla community. All I had was my school bag, and my senses. It was my second coming. I felt, to a degree, like a man who woke up from the dead. I had a surreal feeling of awe ‘ so I had come back.’

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My alarm sounded at exactly 5am, and I woke up with a jump. It was a mixed jump; it started strongly, but ended weakly. Strongly because the day I had long sought after was here ~~I was gonna be free from all the many rules of NYSC~~ and weakly because chasing the day’s dream implied forgetting my many friends and dear students.

After all the sendforths, it was time to pass-out. (In NYSC speak, I had slept late the night before because of three things: nostalgia, ‘exhaustion’, and procrastination.

“Uk! Uk!” Came Hillary’s loud voice from the opposite room.

“I don wake.” I replied – equally loudly.

And so the morning ritual began in sequence: Praying, brushing, bathing, and dressing. In a couple minutes, I was ready, with my three bags: a school bag, a big box, and another bag – which contained the elaborate glassware gifts I had received from the sendforths.

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Fast-forward twenty minutes. I am downstairs, with my bags waiting for a means of transportation under the Gmelina tree in front of Chief Abanishe’s compound (Our lodge). I wait for ten minutes, no vehicle comes, and then I remember that I should say a final farewell to my other colleagues. So, I stroll across the tarred road to the other ‘corpers’ lodge

‘Bang Bang bang.’ I knock at their metallic door.

“Good people! I’d be leaving for good O!” I say in a mellow tone.

Silence. And then the door creaks open.

“Co-ordinator – so it’s true that you’re leaving us.” Christy said.

“No mind Uk, I no sabi where him dey rush go.” Seun added.

“Co-ordina – mebong mebong..” Deborah adds whilst clapping.

I respond gently, almost snobbishly ~~the irony is that I miss them so much; I sometimes wonder why feelings and actions don’t exactly match, particularly at moments when they ought to~~. Take a few photo shots with them and off I go – with Hillary – heading for Ilorin.

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In the middle of nowhere the gray-stands stand

In the middle of gray stands the green berets rise

In the middle of green berets the red hearts beat

In the middle of red hearts the blue clock chimes

‘It’s time to go home’

The entire Passing Out Venue and activities can be compressed into these five lines above.

Hillary and I have just alighted at Post Office Bus-Stop in Ilorin, and we are thinking of how to get to the venue of the POP. An elderly woman strolls gracefully past us, and I hazard to ask her for directions.

“Please Madam, how do we get to Asa Dam road.”

“Cross to the other side of the road and board a cab.” She motions to the other side of the road.

Bingo.

A couple minutes later the quarter-elliptic amphi-theater like structure rises from the right side of Asa Dam road. My thoughts run.

Hmm. This is really life. Wasn’t it yesterday that I ventured into this state? How soon! It seems the older I get, the faster time flies. I should research on that. And why am I just knowing this road, and this massive event centre for the first time. Uk when will you change?

The sounds of the band hit my ears and my memories raced back to the Yikpata NYSC orientation camp. I remembered an occasion when I joined the band.

We had marched for two hours under the hot sun in the morning. My skin was sun-burned. Yes, it was visibly red. It was the first week of camp and we were to resume marching by four in the evening. Not on my life would I go back to stamping my feet and swinging my arms. So, when 4 pm came, I joined the band. The band unit was clustered with people around the different types of instruments: bass drums, tenor drums, rolling drums, trumpets, cymbals etc. I quickly noticed some ladies around the tenor drums with an instructor – and they were hitting those drums well. I gravitated there. My logic was simple: ‘if these girls can play so well, then, maybe, those drums are easy to play.’ I couldn’t have been more wrong. My turn came: I got the beats right the first time, and then I got it wrong. Right then wrong. Right, then right, then wrong. Wrong then wrong then wrong, then I left – with a grin. I realized then that not everything was mathematics.

We alighted from the cab, paid the fare, and dropped my bags at a vulcanizer’s shed. Come on, how could I have carried big bags into the arena – it would have been swaggless?

The arena reeked of smiles, and corps members, and Ice-cream sellers (for the sun was overhead), and soldiers, and photographers, and hugs, and hand-shakes, and you name it! The perimeter of the open-air arena had unpainted concrete stands fitted with green plastic seats – as in a stadium. (In the middle of nowhere the gray-stands stand.) Corps members sat according to their local government areas of posting. I saw many faces that I could remember, and I waved every so often to someone while I walked ‘half-majestically’ to the section of the stands reserved for Isin Local Government Area.

In the middle of the arena, some corps members were marching past the Chair of the occasion (In the middle of gray stands the green berets rise.) being prodded on by soldiers in their ceremonial regalia. It was a cool display. Oh, and I heard the ‘marchers’ were those serving in Ilorin, and I heard some people ‘fainted’ during the rehearsals. Don’t mind me, I hear things!

I could smell anxiety in the air. Everyone ~~almost everyone~~ was tired and wanted out of NYSC altogether. It was as if every corps-member present shared one giant heart that was beating to the sound of the bass drum’s boom boom, and saying, “home home.” (In the middle of green berets the red hearts beat.)

The ceremony didn’t last too long: a blink and a half at most. I thought this was so because of the rapidly deteriorating security situation in the country. My conjectures notwithstanding, big men gave their speeches – most were boring, big men drove in in motorcades with big black cars and angry looking security men. Talking of security men, I saw an officer having a laugh with one of the corps members far ahead of me, I did a double take, and my memory flashed back again:

It was day nine, or thereabout, at the NYSC camp, and, for the first time, we woke up around 6 am – instead of the usual 5:30am. Six years of boarding school life had taught me that it is better to wake up automatically than to be woken by another – the consequence of the later being a headache and slower brain processing time, so by 5:30 am, I had brushed ~~but not bathed~~ and lay on my bed awake with my eyes closed – meditating and waiting for the refrain “if you’re still sleeping you’re wrong.” I was wrong, for I never heard it.

By a few minutes to 6 am, we trudged along to the parade ground and lazed about, waiting for the soldiers to call us to order, to shout “cover up in threes” to swing their sticks and to blow the bugle. None of this happened. Were the soldiers were on strike?

At the first break of dawn, we saw no soldiers. I sighed, we sighed, the atmosphere sighed ‘where are the soldiers’. Then the words came rushing: “O! make this soldiers come now, see as every where dull.” One guy said beside me. And complaints in like manner continued till 9 am when the soldiers returned. In fact, when they returned, corps members were hailing spontaneously and jubiliating. It was funny, but instructive. Only yesterday, we had complained of their harshness, their brutality, but today, we were missing them like… That experience, for me, was ironic, but I learnt to love soldiers from then on, I have ever since. Well things changed from then on, the soldiers became nicer and our drills became less physically demanding. I later overheard that a ‘big man’s daughter’ had called some big people in high places complaining of the harsh drills, and word had come that things be made easier – after the briefing, which was why they were absent earlier in the day.

By the time I came back from my day dream, the event was over, it was time to collect that one piece of paper that encapsulated my one year – the Discharge Certificate, I was about to cross that ocean. (In the middle of red hearts the blue clock chimes.)

The remaining events happened rapidly. I joined the queue to collect my certificate, did so, and took a couple photographs.

Hillary and I - Passing Out


About to collect Discharge Certificate - Queue at Foreground

Thereafter, Tony and I took a cab back home. (‘It’s time to go home’)

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“Uk what are you thinking about?” Tony asked looking in my direction from across the chair where he sat.

I lay on his mattress looking at the ceiling. His small room was half occupied with luggage – his, mine, and a friend’s. “I miss Olla – seriously.”

“Then go back. Why don’t you spend a day or two there.”

“But I’ve left for good, packed everything. What a shame that’d be.”

“Go back jor, is it not one or two days?”

And so we argued back and forth about whether or not I should go back. Then we stopped – sleep took over. I awakened by 4pm and went on a walk around the large compound of the River Basin Authority where Tony worked – weighing my options: cashwise and emotion-wise. Images of the sleepy town of Olla fleeted across my mind’s eyes and by the time I returned to the room, I had made up my mind to eat the humble pie and go back to Olla.

Egro, Friday 14^th February, I was in a cab heading for Omu-Aran, an ancient town in Kwara state, and soon I was on a bike descending the hills into Olla community. The breeze was hot and the sun shone strongly on the tar, as the bike I was on turned and descended into Olla community. All I had was my school bag, and my senses. It was my second coming. I felt, to a degree, like a man who woke up from the dead. I had a surreal feeling of awe ‘ so I had come back.’

I had pinged a few colleagues that I was coming back earlier on. I wasn’t received with pomp, or circumstance, but I could see it in the eyes of all my colleagues that I had been missed – deeply. ~~The eyes can sometimes beat the mouth in the conveyance of the heart’s contents.~~

I stayed in Hillary’s room, for my room was empty and uninhabitable; I had given out my property and food stuff. The afternoon was quiet and I did nothing but lie down. I took a sick colleague to the medical centre and laughed a little when I heard shouts of tears coming from the injection room. So adults still fear injections. It was good to be back. By evening I had no regrets – so I loosened up and said:

“good people, let’s go pluck some cashews.”

“Uk uk – you don come back with cashews abi.” Ufuoma responded laughing.

Well, Hillary and Nnadi came along and the pictures tell the story.

Hillarious! Deriving pleasure from Cashews

In the evening I went to the other lodge, to see how my ill colleague was faring and I met mama. Mama was the seventy-something year old land-lady of a big one-story building which housed the female corps members. Until we came, she lived alone in the house, for all her children, now big men, lived in the city. She was our NYSC mother, as well as our Yoruba laboratory. How so? Mama couldn’t speak English, so whenever we communicated with her, we used the clauses, phrases, and words we learnt, as well as gestures. I remember a time I met her at home:

“Mama, eka’ale.” I said.

“Yellow. Shey O wa dada?” She responded.

“Mowapa mama.”

She went on. “Shey o ri adiye ti mo fi si inu apere yen. Mo no o. O’n ja pelu awon iyi’oku... .”

So mama was reporting one of her chickens to me. She said she beat it and isolated it in the basket because it was fighting the other chickens and not allowing them to feed properly. With mama every being was family. She spoke to her goats, feed her chickens, and disciplined them when they erred. She was so at peace with life, with nature – It was a beauty to behold.

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It was Saturday night, and I had made up my mind to go away, finally, on Sunday morning after the church service. One of my students came to the house and asked me to explain the “Mole Concept” to him – which I did. Thereafter I just lay still and reminisced on some funny things. In my computer exams, I had asked my students: “who is the father of the computer?” and while marking, I saw a script with an answer “Corper Ukeme.”