On getting to Akwanga there was something strange and different about the environment.
I felt it physically and psychologically that I was out of my comfort zone and region. It was almost as if I was out of Nigeria. I know that sounds funny but it is true. We got to the place popularly called Forest, it was the entrance into Plateau state and I immediately knew without doubt how the place had really earned its name. The trees were so tall and much and the whole place as beautiful as it was, was scary.
Journeying through the roadblocks and barricades got me thinking, Nigeria has still not gotten over war threats and situations, why else would every checkpoint in the north resemble an hideout, soldier’s camp or roadblock. We got to Marraba Jama at around quarter to 12 midnight and our driver stopped the bus, saying he couldn’t take us further.
He claimed he had passengers going into JOS therefore we had to find our way to camp. It was like a big blow and we thought he was joking, when we saw that he was truly serious about leaving us there, we began to argue.
We were just 8 corps members yet our voices could be heard from far distance.
How could he have said he was going to leave us behind? We knew nowhere in Jos for christ’s sake. It was later when we refused to keep quiet that he saw another vehicle and made an exchange of passengers with the driver. Promising to take all of the driver’s passengers going into Jos town while the other driver took us to camp. Unknown to us, he refused to pay the driver yet he must have collected money from the driver’s passengers.
When we got to NYSC camp gate, another struggle ensued as the driver insisted on collecting money from us. We refused to pay, telling him we had already paid for our tickets from Ibadan were we took off but the man wouldn’t listen.. in the end the soldiers at the gate had to intervene.
The cold that had hit us on entering into the north was nothing compared to the Plateau cold. It was a serious one. My teeth was keying into each other and my jaw clenched like someone affected by spasms.
The soldiers had checked us in as we had our credentials with us and we had been led to a female hostel to sleep. The bed was bare, no bedsheet , no nothing. My luggage which contained my blanket, cardigan and other cold kit had been separated from me, everything about this transport company had turned out to be error! First our luggage had been transferred into a bigger bus, they claimed was meant for luggages. Second the driver ditched us in the middle of nowhere .
I fell into a fitful sleep, I kept turning and tossing and I knew that if not because I’d travelled a long way, I wouldn’t have been able to close my eyes at all, The cold was terrible. By next morning I was as cold as frozen fish.
A lot of people had arrived by morning and the camp was totally full. It was in the morning in broad daylight that I was able to appreciate that camp. Plateau is beautiful. The hills were so magnificent and one would be tempted to climb it, Of course I did climb Mangu hills, the one inside camp towards the later end of camp. Lool...
Our luggage had to be checked and we were still waiting for ours. We were sent out of the camp again to wait for our luggage. That first day in camp I saw several primary school mates and secondary school mates that I hadn’t seen since we were kids. NYSC really does has its benefits even if it s minimal. The weeks that followed in camp was full of excitement, joy, stress, weariness, pain, disappointments, fear and uncertainty.
Excitement and joy as a result of the new friends I made, several activities that took place although I didn’t attend most of them but I got to listen to gists.
Early morning parades and funny soldiers/ instructors. The new places and scenes in camp, the joy of being somewherelse asides the west. I also loved the evening fellowships it made me feel at home and I loved holding hands and singing the family song.
Stress and weariness; if you ask me, NYSC camp was created to stress every Nigerian youth out! It was parades and boring lectures back to back, one hardly had time to sleep. You had to hustle for water, hustle for food , hustle for space etc, one even had to hustle to bath or use the toilet! That’s during the few times the toilet was a bit clean.
Pain; several times we had to serve punishment as a result of poor hygiene, after inspections. I will never forget the days we were told to squat down and yansh up for hours. Yes the punishment is demonstrated exactly has it sounds and believe me, its some of the worse punishments ever. Several curses fly in the air whenever it is being served.
There were days of terrible rains and the weather was always often harsh. From extreme hotness to extreme coldness, one begins to wonder which to desire. No hot balm could quench the cold when it started and as for the hotness of the sun, you may not necessarily sweat but you will be in total discomfort as long as you remain in the sun.
I remember one of the rains that fell, my friend Tomisin and I were in one kiosk in the mammy market. We had just ordered food was about to start eating when this rain started, suddenly the wind began to blow it was normal at first then suddenly it was terribly violent, everybody ran , we had barely left our food and table when the ceiling of that particular portion came crashing! It would have crashed on our heads… electric wires flying everywhere we ran to safety as it rained ice and water violently for hours. By the time the rain stopped we were terribly dirty and cold. A lot of corpers had been injured. Some buildings had collapsed some tents as well and even the hostel ceiling had been damaged in some areas.
Disappointments; I had been hoping to join the OBS , showcase my article writing talent and love for media but alas I didn’t even get to d audition. Just because OBS was turned into a political thing that you had to bid for,it became royal inheritance for some people such that you had to know somebody or had to belong to a particular clique before you could even be given an opportunity, I doubt if some people were auditioned or interviewed before they became automatic members sef.
In my platoon as well, during volleyball trials, I was initially chosen but late r bounced out, the trainer had been quick to give up on me saying rudely that I had no fingers for volleyball . imagine the embarrassment. That’s how I was unable to participate in anything on camp. I wasn’t a dancer, a party freak or a fan of immoral activities neither am I an actress. I do not sing or rap, neither do I play football. But I’m glad I got to interview an overaged corper.. it is one of my proud achievements in plateau camp. Read my article on this blog : my interview with an amazing corper
Fear and uncertainty; at some points in camp, we were told that book haram was attacking inside of Jos and somewhere close to Plateau camp, I had to reassure myself no harm was going to come to any of us. I also saw the thick forest surrounding the camp and because of the strange noise often heard from there, I realized that it was possible we had wild animals lurking around. But everyone kept acting and pretending like all is well.
I was also worried whether my relocation was going to pull through. Having stubbornly refused to lie my way through, I had attended the relocation interview telling the panel the real reason I wanted to relocate. Which was to be closer to my father and truth be told, Jos was just too far for me to spend 1yr in. I knew how almost impossible it would be to come home as travelling down itself was so much discomfort. The food was another issue, although I didn’t tell anybody that, but being a picky eater, how was I to cope? I hated the smell of their food and it seemed to me that even their normal rice and pepper or jollof rice was cooked in a different manner.
I would be allowing my friend , fellow writer and blogger Lanre Olaniyi (www.olaniyiolanrewaju.blogspot.com.ng) to continue this piece from here .. yes your guess is right I was relocated to Ibadan but Lanre is amongst the few friends who despite all odds stayed back in plateau….while I got a relocation letter to go back to Ibadan, he got a letter to go to Jos North.
"Leaving camp for Jos North local government was the dream of most corpers. Rumor had it that some gave bribe to be posted to the capital city of Plateau, but I got it without lifting a finger. Nostalgia was a cloak that sent me into thinking about a whole lot of things that happened on camp. Thank God it was over and a new phase of serving the nation was before me. With my bags packed, we journeyed through the mountains to Jos. It was a memorable trip as stones of ice dropped from the skies almost attempting to drill through the glass of the bus.
The first few days in Jos were quite boring as my friends from camp have been scattered all over the state while some others like Browny, relocated to some other states and I had to relate with the corpers that were posted to my place of primary assignment. It was not so hard because we were all living together. Before long, I had new friends.
The first issue attached with relocating to another place was solved, however moving around was still a very restricted thing because I cannot navigate on strange roads where an unknown language is been spoken. So for a long while, I had to stay in the house until I was able to summon courage to go out and get familiar with Jos. Plateau is beautiful in its own way as it is tainted with the traditional sentiments of the people. Different crisis that has killed many and spoilt many things gave birth to two kinds of settlements which is based on religion. Christians and Muslims stayed in separate areas. Till I left Jos 11 months after, I kept on knowing new places and I wish to still go back to Jos. Maybe this time, I will take Browny along.
Jos is an amazing place full of mountains. At any point, it always look like you are coming out of a mountain and you are entering another mountain in front. I wondered how they constructed roads and houses because everywhere is full of big stones. Behind the house where I lived was a very vast, but no so tall mountain. We often climb to go and have fun and sometimes pray. The streams around it served as source of water for washing clothes when we have scarcity of water.
Unlike Ibadan, the major mode of transportation is tricycles called ‘keke napep’. Transportation would have been very easy if the drivers could all speak a little Pidgin English, but some do not understand an atom of English. I boarded some of these with a very fat faith hoping that there will be another passenger that will interpret to Hausa. On one of the occasions, the driver took a route that was different from where I know and I was almost saying my last prayer before I discovered that he doesn’t intend to make a sacrifice out of my scared brain.
Serving in the North has a whole lot of advantages and one of it is the “two minutes ranka dede” we get anytime we go to the market place in the NYSC uniform. It was always a thing to long for as you will be proud that you graduated irrespective of the grade. Education is still regarded as a privilege by a large part of the population of the North which is quite sad.
Life in the North is very different from the West as the people are more united and they relate as if they are of the same family.
For example, getting smaller denominations of money by artisans for their business is very easy as they are all willing to help each other unlike the West where it is very hard before an artisan gets “change”. His friends would not even check their pockets before they give a negative reply. The traditional beliefs of the North make life easier than the West.
After some months, Christmas came and most corpers travelled home leaving behind very few of us. Then, the old famous witch of Plateau jumped out of the forest and stole away the little heat we were managing. The temperature dropped to below 100C. I always had 4 clothes on with gloves, socks and head warmer. Bathing became a dreadful thing and I gladly skipped it for many days.
My memoirs will not be complete if I do not talk about the food.
While on camp, I ate almost every food we were served. One of the food looked like semovita and it was not until the third time
I was eating it that I discovered that it is not semovita, but tuwo. After camp, I set out to taste every new delicacy that comes my way. The first was a form of cake made from corn called ‘masa’. I enjoyed it especially when taken with “suya pepper”. Foods like Kose (bean cake) and Suya (Roast meat) were my regular choice. A very interesting thing about the Plateau meat is that they prefer Dog-meat to beef. To an outsider, the meat does not taste differently, but to them, there is some sort of excited taste they get from dog meat. Kunu (wheat-drink) was always a pleasure anytime I find it available.
After a whole year in Plateau, I felt very reluctant to leave because of the hospitality with which we were treated, but I had to return to the West.
N.B
This two in one article was written by Orija Oluwaponmile and Olaniyi olanrewaju.
