The NYSC chronicles - They won’t let me go

They won’t let me go

The Internet Café was fully packed with people, there was barely room for one to shuffle from one end of the small room to the other. shoulders brushed against each other, and foots just scratched the floor in a semi-futile attempt by people to move from their monitor screens to the single central Desk-jet printer which served the whole of the over fifteen computer systems, housed in this public internet access facility, which most people in Nigeria refer to as ‘business centre’.

Although I woke late that fateful Thursday morning, I was less perturbed about time and schedules since I had no structured job to clock into and out of, every other morning and evening. Today, I just decided to rest from all sorts of work whatsoever, I just wanted it to be my personal holiday, the only difference being that I would not be travelling, going to the Cinemas or indulging friends in sports and drinks. Today was supposed to be my personal, sit-at-home, sleep-all-through holiday, the only breaks allowed, being food breaks, but to my utmost aghast I had much more quiet time than I bargained for. Especially from the moment I got that horrific news that the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) call up letter had been released for prospective corpers to access.

Without bothering with the ceremony attached to engaging in an elaborate bath or the formality related to a brief shower, I threw on a round neck t-shirt, a pair of Jeans and loafers, then bailed out of my house and the idea of a home-holiday. An Ibo adage would say that “the frog does not run in vain in the afternoon”, surely something really sinister must be on its trail. Although I had an internet enabled personal computer at home, the absence of power supply for the past twenty-four hours had seen me drain its battery; empty. Indeed, there is a higher chance of finding a drop of moisture in a cup of finely made tea handed to a homeless street bum on the curbs of Lagos than finding as much as one percent presence of power on my laptop battery. Therefore, even against my wish and convenience, I was forced to head straight for the internet Café which was a walking distance of about fifteen minutes from my house.

I was seated in my living room, which also doubled as the dining room sipping a bottle of soft drink and munching away at a small loaf of sixty naira bread, which had no privilege of being garnished with neither butter nor jam. I had just returned from the kitchen where I had gone to retrieve a sachet of water to wash down my rather absurd excuse for a lunch when Jide, my former course mate and friend called to inform me that he had printed his call-up letter, I reflexively blurted out the burning question, “where dem post you?” to which he replied “Akwa Ibom state”, wow! I muttered in a voice laced with subtle fear. Jide had runsed his NYSC posting to Lagos, and that in-spite, he had been thrown to faraway Akwa Ibom Land. I immediately began to imagine what would happen to those of us who had decided to let fate decide for us.

With each step I took towards that Café, I became more and more convinced that I should have bribed someone or somehow found a way to influence my NYSC posting. Fate no longer seemed trusted enough to be entrusted with the task of determining where, how and with whom I would spend the next one year of my life, at least not in this era when the insurgent Boko Haram terrorist group had gained effective occupation of a significant strip of northern states, not only baptising whoever and whatever stood on its path with more than a shower of bullets and rocket propelled grenades, but also with incessant gruesome beheadings and indiscriminate massacre. A subtle anguish escaped my sealed lips. God! I should have runsed it oh!

As I neared the café, my speed decreased as my fear disproportionately accelerated to new levels, but curiosity kept my feet mobile. Upon arriving at my destination, the crowd at the entrance announced the fact that I was not just late, but was obviously less curious. Amidst the boisterous shouting, bickering and laughter, the air was damp with so much fear and trepidation; I could almost touch it. The conversations among everyone in the Café centred on the NYSC posting. You could hear voices flying to and fro, repeating the same set of words as if in a dress rehearsal. “Tunde, where them post you? “mehn, my brother na Kaduna o, you nko?” then a different set of friends would exchange the same set of words “Amaka, where dem post you go?”, “Tosin, na Zamfara o”. From the quick statistics I summed up from ten minutes of waiting astride for someone to evacuate a computer system, It appeared that either NYSC was no longer posting people to the West and Eastern parts of the country, or maybe we all in the Café were handpicked to serve under the fiery hospitality of the ever blazing Northern Sun. I began to wonder, while the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, why has no scientist ever come out to tell us what exactly the Sun does in the South and North. Anyways I do not know about the South, but if the Nigerian situation is anything to go by, then the Sun surely does scorch in the North.

Eventually, a girl exited one of the seats facing a monitor which had her call-up letter pasted on its face, I sneaked a peek at the screen, then I immediately realised why it appeared like all happiness, exuberance and excitement had been drained from her face with a very big pipe. The poor girl had been posted to Gombe. I immediately felt bad for her too, Gombe was one of those states which existed in faraway no-man’s-land somewhere in Northern Nigeria. With the exception of the back of my elementary school exercise book back cover, I barely encounter Gombe state in any news flash, newspaper publication, the state does not even have a single mention in any Nollywood movie. Gombe was one of those states whose allegiance to the Nigerian federation was to be questioned, they existed almost autonomous of the happening and occurrences in the Nigerian state. I used to pride myself as being astride with national politics and current affairs, but to my utmost surprise, I couldn’t come up with the name of the current Governor of Gombe state, not even the name of one of their serving senators, in-fact, I do not remember any public figure, be it politician, businessman or sportsman who hails from Gombe.

The lady returned with two sheets of A4 paper; living proofs that she was not dreaming, but was actually experiencing everything in real life and in full 5-D experience. She bent over in front of me, trying to log out of her NYSC account, while at the same time, rubbing her soft cushion against my sleeping crotch which refused to respond as it usually did. That was just fine by me anyway, that small man needed a whole lot of discipline, especially if I was eventually posted to the North where the almighty Sharia Law wielded the big stick above anyone caught on its wrong side, and the last time I checked, the minimum punishment was about a hundred strokes of cane, howbeit, sexual promiscuity did not rank among the lowly list of sins, if there was anything at all, it ranked among the very worst of sins, the sort that attracted amputation or mass stoning. By the time I woke up from my little reverie, the poor internet connection had finally logged the girl out after several tries, the girl had seemed to blame the computer for her woe, therefore she decided to punish the innocent but haggardly thing by hitting away at its keyboard in all her attempts to log out.

Alas, it was my turn to confirm my worst fear, so I quietly sat down, said a word of prayer and gently clicked on the Login button, then typed in my username and password in the same vein. I thought probably, approaching the computer with a certain amount of civility and courtesy would help it present me with a rather favourable response. It did! My page opened and there it was, starring in my face, “Congratulations, you have been posted to Rivers state for your service year!” Yay! I screamed in excitement. 

Now back to reality, I was actually posted to Gombe state, the only reprieve being that the three weeks orientation camp would be hosted in Jigawa; a safer state. After that, the federal government would unleash us like a recalcitrant Dog which has been finally abandoned by its owner to die on the streets; to die at the hands of the dreaded Boko-Haram terrorists.

I bowed my head in self-pity and let this thought pervade my mind for a minute, if these states are too far away from the centre and barely contribute to national affairs and issues, if these states only exist as part of Nigeria in theory but not in practise, if these states practise sharia as opposed to the civil laws of the federal republic of Nigeria, then why don’t we let them go? So I wonder, if Nigeria was so caring that it would never let such satellite states go, then why would my parents let a grown up, responsible and loving Son like me go? No, they refused to let me go, and just like Gombe state to Nigeria, I willingly stayed back. I love my life.

this is the first in a series i would call "the NYSC chronicles"

Written by Onyeoziri Favour