Adamawa to Lagos: My Service Year Story.

Re-introduction

Hi! My name is Tobi Ojenike. Welcome (back) to my blog. In a bid to get this blog back on its feet, I have decided to share my Youth Service year story here. This is the ‘plainest’ I can get and the words used here are exactly how I felt. And I lost most of the pictures but I’ll put up some of them that I could find. 

Before Camp

I had always wanted to serve in Abuja. I would tell anyone who cared to listen that I wanted to go to Abuja. So, when I was filling out the online form, I chose all the Northern states, that I had visited, except Abuja, hoping I’d get posted there. Eventually, I was posted to Adamawa State. I was numb when I saw the posting, I was neither happy nor sad. I knew that whatever I did at that point mattered less and I would have to go to the mandatory three-week camp. However, my camp was in Bauchi State. So I did not really go to Adamawa till the end of my service year 😉 

Service year started from January, 16th to be precise, when we went to camp.

Going to camp

I checked for an airport in Bauchi for a direct flight from Lagos but there was none. The closest airport was in Jos and I just couldn’t deal. So I resorted to taking a bus from Lagos to Bauchi State. On the day I was to travel, I had mixed feelings, the normal feeling you get when you’re going to a place you’ve never been before. Before camp, I had never been to the Northern part of Nigeria, so I was a tad scared. My bus was to leave by 4pm, to arrive in Bauchi by noon the following day. More than half of the people on the bus were going to camp, like me. 

Oh, and I wore a sling to camp. While in school, I suffered a muscle tear on my right shoulder and the orthopedist recommended I wear one and not stress the hand. So it was quite uncomfortable for me to sit in a particular position for several hours with my arm in the sling. But once in a while, during the journey, I’d take it out of the sling. 

Back to the story...we left Lagos a few minutes past 4pm. When we got to the Lagos/Ibadan express road, the engine of the bus started to overheat. I was worried because we had not even started the journey, like we had barely left Lagos and the engine was hot. But the driver handled the situation and the next time we stopped after that was in Abuja. I barely slept all through the journey because 🤷🏽‍♀️this is Nigeria. At around midnight, I realized the lights of the bus were off and the bus barely made noise as it moved. I instantly sensed that the road was armed robbery prone and the driver too was being smart. Everywhere was dark, there were no street lights in the thick bushy areas. I barely had a network signal on my phone so it was hard for me to know where we were. The few times I got network, I’d use Google Maps to check our location. 

We passed through about 8 states or more. Then at about 3 am, we got to Abuja and the driver stopped for us to get something to eat and ease ourselves. The next time we stopped was when we got to Jos, which was the first ‘bus stop’. 

Abuja started the cold bout we faced in the North. Then it increased in Jos. The North was generally cold, extremely cold. When we finally got to Bauchi,  we had to take another cab to camp. It was like they were expecting Corpers. Northerners are a very nice and warm set of people. So welcoming and sweet. Or maybe because we were corpers 🤷🏽‍♀️ but generally, they are very very nice. Even if they do not understand or speak English, they would still smile at you while they speak their language. 

So, from the park where the bus dropped us to camp was a journey of about an hour and we arrived at camp at about 2 pm, almost 24 hours later. Oh, and there were these little kids at the entrance to camp who wanted to help us with our boxes. They did not mind any amount you gave them, even if it was 5 naira, yes, 5 naira. I honestly stood for a couple of minutes just looking at them and feeling so much pity for them.

Camp

As I mentioned earlier, the camp was cold. It’s named Wailo and that stuck. I think because I had a sling, people were nicer to me. Settling in was quite tedious because it was not a lifestyle I was used to, everybody would agree with me. The hostel I got was okay, and likewise the bed. My ‘room’ had about 32 other occupants 😔 I never ‘hexpererit’. But my friend from the same bus from Lagos, Kate, helped me with a lot of things, including always getting water from the bathroom to keep for use. 

Making friends was quite difficult for me because I did not particularly know anybody. I was always on my phone, calling my Mum or texting someone. But I made friends eventually. 

So, on the first Sunday in camp, I did not go to church because I was ill. I went to the clinic and was placed on admission. Then the clinic coordinator wanted to send me home because in her words, ‘you’re not fit for camp with that sling in your hand’. lol, I removed it and ran away from the clinic. The IV? A doctor in my platoon helped me remove it. 

When I got out of the clinic, my platoon coordinator complained that I was not doing anything for my platoon and according to him,’ all you do is just dress up and walk up and down’ like wow 😂😂

 

At this point, I had to join the volleyball team.

  

I also joined the parade, which surprised most people because of the sling I used to wear.

Camp was fun, I regret not making the most of the time now and not talking to people. I was in and out of the clinic a lot of times because of the weather, it was so sickening. Too many times, I had dizzy spells and was placed on bed rest.

After Camp

When the camp closed, I was in the clinic as usual so I missed the final parade. I was not sure of my redeployment status because the site was down and I could not check so I thought to go to Abuja, my friend’s place, for some days. This girl had always wanted me to come to Abuja for like forever!

So, when I got out of camp to town, I took a cab to Abuja. All the occupants, except the driver, were corpers, we were just four anyways. Bauchi to Abuja was about 6 hours, crossing about 4 states. It was late when I got to Abuja, my friend, Mercy, and her Mum had to come to pick me up. 

Before I got to Abuja, my friend helped me check my redeployment status and it showed Kwara, instead of Lagos. My Mum doesn’t know about this 😂, she will probably read it here for the first time. Oh, and my brother too. So, for about a week that I was in Abuja, it did not change and I just decided to come back to Lagos on a direct flight. It changed to Lagos a couple of days after I got to Lagos. 

Scouting for a PPA

For those who don’t know, PPA means Place of Primary Assignment, basically where you work all through your service year. I went through so much stress looking for a placement honestly but I was lucky to find one with the Lagos State Government, where I worked till the end of my service year. 

Living and working in Lagos

Lagos is not your typical Urban area. This one comes with heavy traffic and ‘mad people’ everywhere. Very stressful too. But it was fun and ‘money swallowing’ 😩😩 

If there is something I learned this service year, it’s to never let the fear of the unknown stop you from achieving whatever you have set out to achieve.

Friends

I have more people I can call friends now.

I met really amazing people and have been able to intellectually interact and gain wider knowledge from them. 

Regrets

I regret not making the most of my time in camp and even in Lagos. There were a lot of things I wanted to do but only a few will understand the constraints I faced and how hard it was for me to survive this whole year. 

Conclusion 

Thank you for reading. I have a podcast now, it’s titled One Question, where we discuss various topics raised from random questions. 

It’ll air on SoundCloud and the first episode will be out on January 1st, 2019.

     •watch this space•