EKO-CORPER: MY LAGOS NYSC CAMP EXPERIENCE

NYSC (temporary) Camp, Lagos

On a recent visit to my former school, the University of Ibadan, I met some freshly graduated students chatting heartily about their preferred state camps for the mandatory NYSC year. Of course, Lagos, Port Harcourt, Abuja and Rivers topped their lists with one girl boasting to her friends that her boyfriend has a cousin who works with an agency of government that could “influence” a prospective Corps Member’s posting to anywhere ...even Sambisa. She reminded me of a friend back in undergraduate days named Sheshe, a friendly serial scammer. I grinned to myself because I have been there before; I am a certified “Eko Corper”, Batch A, Stream 1. And in case you were too young to know, Streams and Batch C concepts began in our set. Now you know ...you are welcome! Let me give you a brief account of life at the elite Iyana Ipaja, Lagos NYSC Camp.

RUN UP TO CAMPING

I was very familiar with Lagos before service. In fact I could pass for a legal resident. I had numerous relatives in the city, therefore where to stay during service year was not even an issue. I had also heard of unpleasant tales from folks who served in less conspicuous states especially regarding accommodation and frequent romance with wild animals. I simply didn’t want that experience. Those two considerations informed my decision to “influence” my posting to Lagos, the Centre of Excellence –yes I did influence it, coman beat me.

While others were in apprehension over their fate, I was settled in my mind because my “runs” was tight. #GbagbeOShi. And in Decemebr 2007 when posting popped out online, only FIVE of us in the entire faculty had that pride tag ...Lagos, Batch A stream 1. We practically walked in the clouds in the days preceding the Camp arrival among our set –a swag only ruined upon the realisation that 70% of the English department also got Lagos. Shu?! How manage? Well, them get so many fine giels sha. In all, there were about 81 of us in Lagos camp from my alma mata.

CAMP ARRIVAL

I went shopping in the early days of March 2008 since Camp was resuming later in the month. Waist-line purse, White sneakers, white knickers, white T-Shirts, white socks, white everything ...I almost bought white menstrual pads. Don’t laugh. Yaba market must have recorded a crazy boom on account of corpers who were outdoing each other in terms of who had the highest numbers of spare wears in camp.

My plan was to arrive in camp in grand style –chauffeur-driven in A/C tight car, sunshade on, aides packing my things into the room. But alas! It worked out just the opposite.  The “numerous” relatives who had such cars were somehow busy or unavailable with their cars. Ha! On top all my preparations? Na here devil dey wait for me? Issorait! I grabbed my loads (hand luggage, buckets, cutleries, and a pillow) and hailed a taxi (driven by one old Egba man). He sized me up and raised his brows when saw my loads, and mouthed something that sounded like “one faaf”. N1500 for a trip of less than 2km. My bruised ego wouldn’t let me haggle. I was only too glad to be relieved. Those weren’t the days of Uber or Taxify.

On to camp we drove.

We ran onto a long queue of cars right from the Iayana Ipaja bridge. Apparently, every EkoCorper had his own “grand entry” plans. Short story, we were moving 30cm per minute for the next 90mins. The taxi man was nagging life out of himself but I couldn’t care. I plugged in my earphones listening to the newly released ‘Gongo Aso” song. A la lan lala. We eventually pulled up somewhere close to the gate of the camp. The speed with which the old man flung out my things from his trunk almost made me burst into a hysterical laughter. I held it.

Now on my own, I joined a long line of corps members who were being frisked by Police/DSS. It finally got to my turn after a short eternity. They went through my hang luggage, found no contraband but every metallic cutlery was detained. Things like forks, spoon, table knife and ceramic plates didn’t make it in. Their excuse was that corpers often turn thing into medieval weapons whenever fights occur among them ...and they often do. That was how I left behind my beloved BA/Emirates/Qatar Airlines-heisted cutleries.

I got in at at last around 3pm, deflated, disoriented, disillusioned, disgruntled, discomfited and in shape of every de-s you can think of. The lure of the Lagos camp was well worn off by now. The next challenge was to register my presence with the camp authorities. On getting to the hall (actually a dining hall), I met a sea of heads, that instantly, I wish I had chosen Yobe or Bornu state (no Boko Haram then). We sat according to arrival and thus began the ritual of shift-I-shift till I eventually registered around 6pm. The long wait was lubricated by the joy of seeing familiar faces and of course, tush babes with both fake and real western accents. Thereafter, getting sleeping foams was the next hurdle. Fortunately, my big mouth had made me some acquaintances so I didn’t need to struggle much before someone just back from the Sambisa battle of mattress acquisition handed me one (that smelt of locust beans) on a platter of gold. Well, half a bread is better that chinchin!

Next Everest to climb was getting a room and a bunk to place your foam on. Nwokem! Come see where fully grown men dey lie down ontop bare metal bunk so dem go fit claim ownership of a bed space after dem don get mattress.  I eventually found a room on the second floor among some of the most interesting guys I’d ever meet. Kitchen called for dinner around 7.30pm but I was too tired to even hear the bell. I slept off till the next day.

CAMP LIFE

I was woken up by some maliciously thunderous metallic sounds made by soldiers to rudely wake us into regimented life as early as 4.30am. Any honest Nigerian would tell you that that period is when sleep is usually “sweetest”. I woke up with a banging headache ...not to mention that I battled giant mosquitoes with barrel-like proboscis all through the night? One guy asked from his sleep, “were wo niyen lo nlu irin yen?” –who is that mad man banging metals? I suppressed a volcanic laughter within me lest I partook of his gargantuan punishment. Luckily, none of the soldiers spoke Yoruba. We were marched to the parade ground for the morning drill –a ritual for the next 19 days. Half asleep, we were welcome by the fiery speaking NYSC State Coordinator, (we called him SC) and the Camp Commandant (CC), a short black Army Major whose movement only reminded me kulukulu. It was a common pastime among corpers to argue if he got commissioned by mistake or by pity due to his height. A typical Adamawa man; he pronounced fifty as “pipty” and Corpers as “Corfers” ...of course to laugh at his diction was mutiny. He read the riot act to us in a military style chiefly among which include;

-no loud music, as a matter of fact, no entertainment system

- no staying out after 11pm lights out, even if your ancestors are calling you

-no other colors are allowed to be worn, except white and green

-failure to recite the national and NYSC anthems properly upon unscheduled request is tantamount to treason

-the federal government owns your legs for the next 3 weeks, they no longer bear allegiance to your brain.

-soldiers are your mini-gods. Worship them for they represent the president & C-in-C.

-no sickness is critical enough to excuse you from morning and evening parade. Not even madness. Etc

Thereafter, we completed our registration from where left off the previous day. We obtained IDs and attended several lectures bordering on how and why Nigeria’s greatness rested on our shoulders. I found myself in Platoon 9, a group of some rather care-free, noisy and merry fellows like myself. We were often singled out by soldiers for various offences including but not limited to unlawful laughter, disobedience, lawlessness, disorderliness, rowdiness, wrongful assembly, noisiness, terrorism and even mutiny. We gathered quite a reputation that made us serve punishments for other platoons’ offences. I was named “senator” by my fellow platoon 9ers because I was always advocating punishment waivers. We had so many characters in our midst that we won the Drama competition, came 3^rd in Drilling Competitions but came last in Onga-sponsored Cooking fest. One Ijebu girl represented us. Our contestant for “Miss Lagos Camp” was booed and cried off stage. I was nominated to sing on behalf of my group during 9ice performance, but after sampling my voice and that of those who showed up, we dropped the whole idea altogether. So also was cultural dancing, we came 2^nd to the last. We won big in comedy while our nominee for “Mr Macho” was more interested in winking at girls than showing off his muscles.

MY ROOM MATES

I was roomed with about 21 others, 15 of which were Igbo guys mostly from Nnamdi Azikwe University, Akwa (NAU) and University of Nigeria, Nsuka (UNN). A few were from the University of Port Harcourt while we also had some “foreign students” amongst us. Now that term foreign student is used to describe any corps member that schooled outside Nigeria including those who went to Cambodia, Iraq, Libya etc. Indeed some of them schooled in UK & US (e.g. my bunkie, one of the sons of Elizade’s Owner and one other Igbo US-born guy with this particularly difficult-to-understand accent that made me often avoid convos with him, lest I’d just be nodding like an idiot). My roomies were the chop-life type. Always the last to leave Mammy Market or to reach the parade ground. Noisy yet sophisticated, playful but classy, you can’t but love them. My room was actually adjacent to the ladies bathroom which oddly but nigerianly had fewer louver blades than gaping holes. So it was free x-rated movies for us guys in the morning whenever we stand at the corridors. The ladies who didn’t wake up early enough (before the parade) to bath under the cover of darkness became feasts for our roving eyes. There was this particular Ibadan boy that became an overnight “boobs pundit” by analysing to us the different kinds of boobs on display ...the sucked, unsucked, oversucked, gummy, flipflop, mango, orange, pawpaw and cancerous ones. Gosh!! I’m laughing writing this.

KITCHEN DUTY

I initially avoided the dining hall because I felt the food were below standard. However, after a few days of spending huge sums to patronise the mammy market like the big boys would do, I changed my slogan to “patronize Nigerian government”. Each platoon was to do kitchen duty on different days. However, when it was the turn of Platoon 9, the meats suddenly became a scarce commodity on the meals of “gentlemen corps members”. In short, half of the corpers didn’t have meats on their plates. I kept seeing coolers and food flasks of different shapes and colours doing “to and fro” between the kitchen and rooms of the kitchen handlers. Well, that was the last time Platoon 9 was called for such sensitive tasks. Often, I get extra portions of meals by the virtue of my popularity as “Senator”.

FOREIGN STUDENTS CRISIS

A riot almost occurred one morning close to posting date. The SC ceremoniously asked foreign students, to pile up on one side of the grounds. Even corpers from Honougbe Univeristy, Benin Republic (a University perhaps below the ranks LASU & Akungba) moved. #Modaran. We, the local students started murmuring because we knew the other side was about to get a preferential treatment in terms of posting. The SC told us over the OBS (Orientation Broadcasting Service) to swallow our murmurs because the foreign students had magnanimously stooped low to “do service” with us, the lesser mortals. That was it! The murmurs gave way to loud derisive shouting and arguments. The soldiers underrated the emotions and they moved in to caution corps members characteristically with the threat of whips. It only further infuriated the youths. Some soldiers had their whips seized by “unknown corpers”.

The assembly was becoming unruly; military was losing control.

The CC’s voice over the OBS was drowned in loud heated arguments. Even the girls were yelling.

The disorderliness was almost becoming violent.

Soldiers, anticipating a riot, were taking offensive formations with batons in hand. They were yelling orders at each other. Some NYSC staff quickly gathered round the SC and who was holding talks with the CC. Few minutes later, the voice of the Camp Coordinator (the most senior staff after the SC) boomed over the OBS asking corps members to go back to status quo. The Major ordered his men to withdraw. The SC was somewhere in a corner guarded by soldiers, probably regretting his goof. The parade was dismissed after being calmed by the Coordinator. However, the arguments continued inside the rooms among corpers. The most amazing thing about the whole foreign student issue was that even those who schooled in Ethiopia came back home with American accents. Na wa!

POSTING

I had arrangements on how to secure a plum posting to an oil company. Indeed, everyone had theirs. However, on the day of the posting (final day in camp), I confidently strolled into the hall to receive my letter. Schools were considered a bad posting because they do not pay well and your chances of being retained after service year were slim –who would want that anyway? Except, probably, the married women who wanted more free time to take care of family.

I knew I was getting an oil company posting as PPA, so no stress. On opening my letter and reading the content, I had to ask someone else to confirm what I saw –LIFETIME COLLEGE, AYOBO. Blood stopped flowing to my head; everything became dizzy. I had been eventually duped!