Oh, sure it begins like any other day, but it fails to end that way.

First thing was the Internet connection getting out of whack even before I walked into the office. Of course, I needed to look up stuff before news production could commence. There was just no way.

All the while, the IT was getting whacks at the internet connection thingies, hoping it would work. It did not.

Someone had gone to a cybercafe and only returned forty minutes before the bulletin was to go out. I had forty minutes to produce an entire fifteen-minute bulletin from scratch. It was not going to be easy.

Ten minutes to air time, a consultant begins to seek my attention, and then the IT guy calls me over. What else to say but to give me a few moments to finish and then be right there with them?

Not so? Instead I got the short shrift. Military routine--WHEN I SAY JUMP, YOU SAY "HOW HIGH?"--would have been a kinder description. No, sirree. I was described as RUDE, INSUBORDINATE.

Of course, there was the last-moment admission that I knew my job, but not before perspicacious questions like DO YOU THINK YOU KNOW YOUR JOB? I said yes, I did.

SO KNOWING YOUR JOB DOES NOT GIVE YOU THE RIGHT TO BE RUDE TO PEOPLE.

Rude to people? Geez! I don't even want to talk to people let alone be rude to them. If everyone just sat in their seats and went up to Valhalla, it wouldn't matter a row of beans to me.

Just in the thick of a deep-shit production, I get told, THIS BULLETIN HAS FAILED.

I look at the time display on my cellphone and say, NO IT HASN'T, only to be told looking at my phone was rude.

Evidently, placing a palm on the table was rude too, as was bracing one foot in front of the other.

No one told me I was getting employed in a military regiment when I moved to take the job.

And then I get asked, HOW OLD ARE YOU?

It is the most unlikely question? Now if that is not inviting rudeness. I want to ask, WHAT HAS THAT GOT TO DO WITH ANYTHING? That would have been ruder than rude, so I keep silent.

But I am again bluntly reminded it is rude to keep silent when asked a question. I keeping silent because it would have been super-rude to say what was on the tip of my tongue.

Anyway, newsrooms are that way, pressure cookers of all kinds. These things happen all the time, and then they blow over once production is done and the news is going out on air or has just gone out on air. In newspapers, all the madness becomes a happy hour once the paper goes to bed.

These things happen. Kuchh kuchh hota hai. That's Hindi for SHIT HAPPENS.

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What is she doing? Not crying--try yawning. But why? Tired, hungry or just for the heck of it?

My maternal folks would call this onu gbajie boys

यह बछ्ही तो प्यारी है ना?
उसका नाम है बम्बिनो।
जो नाम मैंने दिया उनको।
इस के लिये मेरे पास एक गाना है।
यही तो
जा कुडिये जो कर ले पूरा बदन तेरा रां दिया
ओए मुन्देया वदा रहा सुली पे जो न तुझे तां दिया
मऐं सुली पे चड जाऊं तो बोल अब ही मर जाऊं
याद रखना मेरा कहना यह दिल एक दिल मिल जाने हैं

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Anyway, she has become a regular part of office life at work. And at the lodge. If you do not get the hang of what I am going on and on about, do not bother. It takes more time than nine months to do that.

Anyway, Bambino is the only name I could come up with for the little chic. She is growing right into it, even though her mum prefers other funny-sounding stuff that sounds like drinking sugar and syrup.

She is a very cooperative little thing, and I can imagine what a ruddy, crumpled, ballfisted wonder she must have been bawling her way into the world.

If there ever were an award for babies who cooperate in the office--and by cooperation, I mean no crying, no demanding for attention and milk and water and stuff just when you need five minutes to do something crucial--she would pick the prize.

It is only a matter of time before people start missing her when she is not in the office. No matter how much the guys pretend to macho and the girl pretend to be arty, every once in a while they get to pick her when she is crying--gosh, did I say crying? I think I meant simpering--and try to pacify the tot.

There is something earth shattering about holding a baby in your hand, especially when they are not so troublesome you feel like throwing them down. She really respects herself.

One of these days, I am going to teach her some Hindi words. Not that she would understand too much of it, but it would be just for the heck of driving her mum crazy. She would call it a contagion and an infection rolled into one.

Watch out, Indiana has got designs and stuff lined up for Bambino.

Just wait until Bambino goes on air.

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His name is Dauda, and he went by the blog on the missing penis, maybe for the second time in two days, and he didn't really like it anymore.

He complained it was missing penises all over the place.

The amazing thing is lots of people consider it amusing that a crucial part of ones anatomy is missing, especially because the person in question is an infant. No one is thinking how the lad is going to live, and if he does, how he would react when he bathes with young boys his child and discover that he doesn't have something between his legs when other boys his age do.

Talk of snatched innocence!

A friend of mine thought, of course the boy will grow without it and in the first seven, eight, nine years, he would not be any wiser. Then he is going to grow into puberty and realise how much he would miss, realise he is anatomically misfit, neither male nor female, and then he would kill his mother.

Anyway, a recent comment on the missing penis forced me to update this blog. In doing that, I have had to battle writer's block and now the juices are dripping somewhat.

For a crazy update, police is now searching for the girl. She ran from home with the baby.

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But it is uplifting, like a phoenix rising out of its ashes.

I hope it affects you the way it did me, so I reproduce the words here.
(Do not worry about what it means, though I will reproduce that too, it just will affect you)

खामोश है जो यह वो सदा है
वो जो नहीं है वो कह रहा है
साथीयों तुमको मिले जीत ही जीत सदा
बस इतना याद रहे एक साथी और भी था
जाओ जो लौट्कर तुम घर हो खुशी से भरा
here is it below in english
This is the call that is silent;
the one who is no more is saying
my companions, may you meet with victory upon victory.
Just remember this: you had another companion as well.
If you do return, may your home be filled with joy...

कल पर्वतों पर कहीं
बर्सी थी जब गोलियां
हम लोग थे साथ में
और हस्ले थे जवान
अब तक चट्टानों पर हैं
अपने लहू के निशान
साथी मुबारक तुम्हें
यह जशन हो जीत का
Yesterday, somewhere in the mountains, when the bullets showered down,
we were all together, and our courage was fresh.
Traces of our blood still remain in the crags.
My companions, congratulations to you on the celebration of your triumph.

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Oops, sorry. I realise now that not everyone will be able to read what I just wrote, but I am having a major case of writer's block and I cannot put down a sensible word.

so I told myself, TODAY I DO NOT KNOW WHAT I AM GOING TO WRITE.

To a word, that is what I have written above.

in the meantime, enjoy this music.

It is all about being different. SABSE ALAG--different from everyone.

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Lokoja went wild when the case emerged.

The story broke when an adoptive family attempted to visually determine the sex of a baby they planned to adopt from the local council secretariat.

Discovering the missing organ, council officials and staff at ministry of women affairs and social development have stepped up efforts to get police to commence investigation.

Their staff had been catering for the mother of the baby as a welfare case. She is said to be mentally ill.

She told neighbours when the case broke that her son's penis hurt and that a man she referred to simply as "Mallam" advised her o get rid of the entire organ.

She admitted having paid him N2,000 to get the job done, and she insists her baby's corporeal functions are now unimpaired.

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You imagine it should be a simple, straightforward business.

Not so. At least not the way the media is going about it.

From Japan to Kenya, the stories have been piling. Some news correspondents unearthed Obama Senior's home and got "bicycle" stories out of a tiny Kenyan village.

The Obamamania smote Japan hard and fast.

In the US? Forget it! The madness is spreading fast beyond Washington. A column in Time magazine talked said, "There is a new economic stimulus plan, and his name is Barack Obama."

This is the sort of thing the media dies for. BBC, Sky, CNN, Fox, even C-Span all want to outdo each other. The gimmicks on-air are breathtaking, as is the banter between anchorpersons. CNN claimed it had the only DV camera overlooking the square where hundreds of thousands gathered to watch the inauguration. It also claimed it got exclusive access to a security camera showing the entire area around the Mall and the Capitol. The shots were so many, it split its onair screen in more than twenty places to accommodate all the shots.

In faraway Nigeria, its national broadcaster NTA--which has luckily gone international on cable--stationed an OB van to cover the event. The private-operated Channels Television is also on cable and is not about to be outdone. Terrestrial broadcaster Confluence Television promoed the inauguration hours before Obama even got out of bed and panelled guests to discuss the far-reaching implications.

Reports are already pushing responsibilties onto Obama's shoulders--from closing Guantanamo Bay and pulling America out of Iraq to ending the conflict in the Sudan and DR Congo.

Questions are flying through the airwaves. What no one is asking is whether Obama can chew what the world has bitten off for him.

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Previously, as head of Nigerian Labour Congress, he led the working masses of Nigeria. He was the poster child of struggle and several longlasting strikes, the spokesperson sounding the drum on why Nigeria must address the welfare of its workers if the country wanted better service. And, of course, the story went, a Nigeria that couldn’t take care of its labour force couldn’t manage any other sector either.

Between the strikes and his vociferous lambastes, he rattled Olusegun Obasanjo’s presidency. He also garnered the liking of the entire country, half of whom were already wishing they had a leader like Oshiomole.

So when he announced he would run for governor in his home state, the euphoria naturally spread beyond the borders of Edo. It was a national delight, and millions of Nigerians keenly watched him campaign through the streets of Edo before finally going up against the well-seated powerful PDP that held Edo by the balls—some would call it a stranglehold.
Edos wanted to get rid of PDP, which in turn wanted nothing to do with then incumbent governor Lucky Igbinedion. Informed watchers said the governor was said to have disappointed his Bini people and shamed the state, so the party concluded that zoning the ticket—or outright handing it to an Esan, Oserheimen Osunbor—would placate the state. At the same time, there were plenty Edo who thought differently—that shooing Oshiomole into Osadebey Avenue would do the trick.

Oserheimen got power instead. Several tricks happened during voting and the battle to correct them lasted a good eighteen months in tribunals before a final verdict handed victory to Oshiomole.

Now he must distinguish between heading a labour union and running a state. He may not find it easy with a legislature filled with PDP lawmakers, but he must manage. Recently he sent in a list of eighteen commissioners. Five slots were reported reserved for his AC party (Labour Party got one) and the five annoyed his party for reasons it was too meagre. A lot more people were also angered—Tom Ikimi for one. A television reporter attached to the legislature explained that not everyone could expect satisfaction from the list. It was only a first round of appointments meant to reward some who stood by him throughout the legal battles—and any who didn’t might do better to expect nothing. Evidently, several state politicians fall into this category.

The test might go even further. Also recently, someone—I can’t recall who now—jokingly asked what Oshiomole would do if workers in Edo state went on strike. A TV producer who visited the state recently reported that the governor himself went round filling stations to check pump prices when stations refused to sell at normal prices following a spell of scarcity in December. She also reported the new governor as saying workers had no good reason to go on strike.

If he had said that when he led organised labour, Obasanjo would have had fewer troubles. And you have to wonder what the former president would say if a worker strike confronts this new governor, never mind that he prefers to be called comrade. But don't wonder too long, for the same question was put up on a breakfast television show.

The responses are as good as...

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i may have made a booboo in the last entry.

the festival is eid-el-fitri, not eid-el--kabir.

eid-el-kabir appeared in the story because it was originally written during the celebration of that muslim festival.

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Imagine my feelings when last night I heard a presenter on ART say the words, “On the eighteenth day of Ramadan....”

I never consciously thought Muslims kept track of how many days into Ramadan they had gone. Now that’s a mistake. The muslims around me do keep time: they keep track of how many hours they have spent without food, and how many more hours to go before the fast is broken for the day.

They also keep track of how many more days have to go before they can throw off the fast, have a big break and kick up their heels celebrating eid-el-kabir.
The mistake is this: the muslims around me don’t necessarily represent the true image of islam. There are ordinary followers of faith among Christians. Islam has its own category of nominal followers.

Back to the presenter. He spoke Arabic, or so I thought, seeing as I was watching him on a TV set inside a restaurant whose owner decided it was much civil to leave the volume turned so low the pictures on screen made you feel like you were watching those old soundless movies.

Apart from speaking Arabic or something like it, subtitles were provided on screen by ART. At least, that’s what the credits said.

This presenter was fully bearded and bespectacled, endowed with pinkish lips that made all the ladies in the restaurant sit up and take notice. He had charisma. I turned sideways to my companion and mentioned that the presenter was the Pastor Chris Oyakkhilome of the Muslim world. My companion easily agreed.

The word God kept flashing across the screen, and it took the sharpest of eyes to discern that the presenter was a muslim speaking to the muslim world. My companion placed him in a world of his own. I thought that was wrong, kind of. The word God, and the few times the word was represented by the masculine pronoun capitalised (He and Him), wasn’t the preserve of Christians. Come to think of it, it was an English word. The fact that the name Allah never made it into the subtitles didn’t help things with my companion. The name of the Prophet, however, made it onscreen a couple of times.

Prejudices aside, when the programme ended a few minutes later, it left me with the same feeling I get when I watch Christian programming on television.

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But this can only when it is used carefully.

When speech is unnecessarily sprinkled with swearing, the concept loses its power to arouse thought and grab attention: it becomes not just insulting but a demonstration of a vocabulary-challenged speaker.

At least, that is the way I feel about it. Not that we are always right though.

People have different reasons for choosing to swear. Some think they look cool when they spout so many F-words. Others feel they are really communication.

Of course, they could be doing just that

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That’s exactly the thought that came into my mind late yesterday. There I was seated before the computer, trying to update my blog and into my new newsroom walks my new boss accompanied by my old governor. If that’s a trifle confusing, let me attempt an explanation.

My new job is in the newsroom of a newly established news organisation. My new boss owns the new news company I work for. My old governor is the former governor of the state I left to come to take up the new job in my new location. Get the drift now?

In case you are still uncertain, the old governor is none other than former Edo state governor Lucky Igbinedion. He is kinda embattled at the moment, what with the anti-graft agencies seeking to come down the back of his neck like a ton of bricks for improprieties allegedly perpetrated during his term in office.

Point is, I thought leaving Benin City behind was same as leaving everything else behind. Since moving to my new location, I haven’t seen anyone to remind me of Benin City.

So how come the first person to remind me of where I left, the first person to strike that chord, the first person that I should run into should be the former governor of my state?

Is that my past? Or is this a one-off?

KAL HUAA HAMESHA HUMEIN PAKADTA HAI KYA?

Main samajhta jo baat vo kahte hai ki guzara huaa din ek sayaa ki tarah. Is se koi dhaud kabhi nahin sakta.

Yah sochna jo mujhe aaya hai kal. Main baitha huaa computer par, mera blog ko poori karne ki koshish karke, aur jo aata hai mere naye newsroom mein—mera naya maalik aur mera poora rajshri raja. Main bataaoon.

Naya khabaar organisation ki khabaarkamre mein hai meri nayi naukri hai. Jo nayi company ka maalik hai mera naya maalik. Mera poora rajshri raja hai jo rajshri se chala huaa main isliye main naukri kaam shoor karta hoon ki. Samjha ab, hai na?

Agar tumhein samajh nahin aata hai, poora rajshri raja vahee hai Edo state ka governor Lucky Igbinedion. Yahee ek ladaai ke beech mein. Anti-graft agencies ko uska gardaan mein jump karna chahie. Kis liye yah to daulat chor ki jab yah to sarkari mein.

Maine socha ki jab maine benin city se chala maine sab kuchh chod diya hai. Jab se maine pahunch gaya mera naya sthan, maine nahin dekha koi jisse benin city ki yaad aati hai.

To kaise ki pahla aadmi jisse jahaan main chala huaa ki yaad, pahla aadmi jo mar vah chord, pahla aadmi jisse mila mera rajasthan ka former governor chahie.

Vah to mera guzara huaa din? Ya ek baar-baat hai?

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You would that when a new company comes on the market, which they do always, they want the best. They do anyway.

They put you through several levels of rigorous interviewing, pick through your credentials and experience with a fine toothcomb and chuck out anyone they think will pull down the standard of their work and the core values they represent on the market.

Then they mail out appointment letters, and barely forty-eight afters after you start work as a new staff an in-plant training is afoot.

You spend nearly all of your working day on your bum listening to a course facilitator contracted to put you through the wrenches of college learning once more, complete with handouts and ultimatums like "switch off your phones in class" and "do not disturb this class in anyway." There are even class reps.

Anyway, it does not matter that much. So long as the purpose of the training is achieved. The employer is happy he is getting his money's worth, the staff get to keep their jobs, and the facilitator smiles to the bank after executing one more contract.

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I’ve never known exactly what that means but I’ve always wanted to use it.

I guess this could go for another welcome-back entry on this blog. I really haven’t been that active for the past weeks—few and several and everything in-between.

That’s because I was in the middle of changing jobs—workplace, rather, since I’m still in the media business of writing, reporting, editing.

Precisely what I have been doing before now except that I now have a place with somewhat steady internet connection, which means the entire blogdom will be reading more frequently on these pages.

So once again, welcome back to THE VOICE IN THE DESERT.

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Is the moon different in Niger? First time I saw it in niger, it was before six in the evening and it was already full and round. I ask forgiveness if I expected it to be different. But in what way? It is still the same orb of silver I see everyday in almost any place.

The N-word makes it all different.
First I got the call-up for Niger and wondered, where on earth is it? Actually, it was—where is Niger on the map of Nigeria? The most I got was that it was IBB’s home state—if having perhaps the largest state linked with the most maradonic of past presidents made any difference.
My second thought was actually a disappointment. Strangely, I expected to be thrown farther than the belt in the middle—maybe some outlandish place like Sokoto or Borno, and I could switch places with Gladys Ichifitanure or Lawrence Isaiah. No.
Departure for Niger was filled with dread and anticipation.
Dread: what would camp be like? How many hoops would sardonic military trainers march me through? Who could survive?
Anticipation: camp was an approximation of life on some exotic Caribbean beach that doubled as destination for sex tourism. Camp would be fun, games, sweat, sex, booze—all the sins and vice a soul could bear before death—crammed into 21 days of depravity.
That pull of sin is strong. That’s why it was easy to stare through the bus window at the countless hills and boulders, at a landscape that looked like someone had sprayed pebbles as big as houses all over the place and you simply had to bu9ild your house on them. Isn’t that the rockiest foundation!
It was eye-opening in ways both good and bad. I haven’t seen much of the denizens and it seems there are more southerners than I can count northerners, even though Shari’a operates here.
Perhaps it is different in Niger, and maybe the moon has to be different too.

DAY 2
“My name is Brother Brown. And you are?”
the young man asked the question with the most open smile I had seen in the eight hours it took to get to Paiko. I had overcome my dread, and the last three-minute walk to get to the camp was a coup of sorts. So I responded, half thinking he was out to obtain me.
He turned out to be a fellowship recruiter, actually a music director with Redeemed. The other two men with him were colleagues.
“What’s the thing you need most?” another man, who I later was told was the president of the fellowship, asked. He was called Papa Wale: papa for president, wale for his first name.
I thought he expected my answer to be inevitably “Jesus,” and said nothing.
“Mercy,” he continued, answering his own question. “Mercy is what you need.”
It was kind of good to come into camp a day earlier. That way you could register faster once the camp opened officially. With opening yet to happen, many would be stranded. Not every one of us who came a day before was sure to get registered early, however, and the accommodation slots were so few many were left homeless virtually.
Redeemed has a family house, they told me, and anyone was welcome to stay there regardless of Christian denomination. And they promised, should I go with them, to convey from the family house in Minna, a 15-minute drive from Paiko, to the camp next morning so I could register early.
It was a blessing. The worst thing that could happen to anyone in a foreign land is to be stranded, with no place to lay your head while lugging your luggage about.
They had the same message for every new arrival they could get. They ignored—even laughed—at those newcomers with a strong overweening sense of independence who simply zoomed by as if they knew any better.
One camp official offered us newcomers temporary accommodation in exchange for our call-up letter, which we could get back in the morning.
We took him up and forgot the fellowship, which settled for later comers.
Once we settled down, the issue of security came up and we had to find a way to beat theft till morning. We’re still trying and looking over our shoulder. No hope whatsoever.

DAY 3
On Tuesday 5 September 2006 registration was hell. I stood from 7am to 1am and couldn’t register. Because I wanted to be first to register on Wednesday morning. I set alarm for 3.30am and woke up promptly. But so did at least a hundred others. The hall filled with a seething mass of desperate bodies queuing up for registration.
A few minutes before it commenced, soldiers came in and chased everyone out. It was unbelievable. Usually only uniformed corpers who’d through with registration should be mustered for drills. Seeing them squirm through the rigours of rising early and marching through the early-morning mist was supposed to be vengeance against them for successful registration while others stayed all night and slept in open classrooms and in open air.
However, the stupid soldiers ordered all and everyone out on parade.
Public relations officer Binta Shaibu made a few comments, taught the NYSC anthem and made the mistake of using the word “retire.” The word was taken literally, the civilians we were. She’d actually said, “when you retire…” and we didn’t hear the rest. We took off, all racing to get back to the registration hall first. It took four soldiers armed with 3-feet poles to send us back to the parade ground.
We hesitantly joined the morning jog—and found it both distasteful and exciting. Once the jog was over we ran back to the hall for registration and continued standing on queues. There were more people willing to cheat and jump queues than there were people willing to organise it.
Hours later I got to the front of six lines for registration.
Check in. Collect counterfoil. Check documents. Registration by state and discipline. Check filled-in forms. Collect ID and publications. Pick up kit. Reclaim luggage. Register for hostel accommodation.
I went for evening drill, queued up for dinner, took a bath and slept once in a long time.

DAY 4
The 21-day camp was one time I thought Nigeria could be at its most secular, where tribal and religious lines would dissolve and all graduates would be brats who’d make the lives of camp official and physical trainers hell; that God and humanity would be forgotten and any time spared from military drills would be used for fun, games, fooling around and hurried quickies all over the place.
Wrong.
You can’t know how shocking it was to wake up for drills at 4am on Wednesday 6 September to rain. We fretted at going out in the rain, half praying the soldiers would forget the drills.
Oh, no, the bugle sounded and we marched out in white shorts, shoes, socks and tee-shirts, looking like old pot-bellied cricket players.
I got the shocker on the parade ground. We mustered into platoons in three files and began singing and clapping and praying. It was shocking, to say the least. It lasted for nearly half an hour, then the Shuaibu lady came and demanded more prayers—Christian and Muslim, according to the camp timetable. The Christian prayer warrior got the reassuring support of everyone, the Muslim got scanty, scattered responses to his lilting Arabic.
The jogging began spiritedly. The first jog was a flop. This, the second for me, led by Sergeant Ayuba aka Airborne—or Counterforce, as he sometimes called himself—leader of 4 Platoon, was great. He was anticipated, though. Every crazy song he led got resounding refrains in chorus.
If you smoke, Abacha government no go worry you.
Dem don tire, dem don tire. Lazy corper, dem don tire.
See monkey…worwor.
Adamma adamma adamma.
Chop akara dey go, moi-moi no dey.
There was more clapping and loud stomping than actual jogging accompanying the songs.
Airborne is Calabar but speaks intense Hausa, and even looks it, so that when he mentioned being Calabar I had to look at him twice to make sure he wasn’t kidding.
“I am a military trainer,” he said to make it clear why he needed utmost cooperation from 4 Platoon. “I train soldiers who are not ready for combat, not civilian corpers who are less than paramilitary.” One girl who speaks hausa, wears a veil and manages to look Yoruba (actually her mother was) called us semi-soldiers.
“When I hit a soldier, I feel hardness. And that spurs me,” Airborne went on. “But if I hit you [meaning civvy corper] I feel soft, and I don’t like it. Hardness makes me happy.”
He really took on physical training with gusto. Once the PT was over and we got back from jogging, he commenced warming-down exercises, as he expertly called them, to restore stretched muscles and stop them from tearing. Many were dangerously close to experiencing that firsthand.
PT for nearly 2000 lazy grumbling corpers was no picnic, but each platoon was as ready to outdo the others as were the platoon commanders happy to see their platoon was better and exciting rivalry into the others.
From the front a-jogging begins/from the back a-marching begins/front the left a-jogging begins/from the right a marching begins.
Jogging no be punishment. Na our normal training.
No one knew how prophetic those lines really were then.

DAY 5
Camp Orientation Day is a day all corpers look forward to. It is more like a second matriculation that only happens once in a lifetime. The governor of Niger was coming and we’d for four days been rehearsing a march parade, salutation and stuff—morning and evening.
As instructed, we were on the parade ground at 8 sharp. Of course, the officials didn’t show up until two hours later. Gov Abdulkhadir Kure didn’t shot up. It turns out Niger is like a village chiefdom with retired generals, notably IBB, at its head. No public event is attended without due approval, even when it is deemed fit. So Kure sent a commissioner from his state cabinet and the commissioner in turn sent his permanent secretary.
Then things began and should have gone smoothly once the swearing-in was concluded, though some conveniently left out the part of the oath that said something about “paying the supreme sacrifice for the Fatherland and shunning bribery and corruption.”
But students will always be student, bloody civilians that they are. Many, once they decided they had tired of standing, squatted, uncaring that the governor’s party was still there.
The salute and three happy cheers for the governor were passable at best. Hip, hip, hip, and 2000 voices—more like 1700 to be exact were supposed to chorus hurray. Some substituted hurray with Kure, others put in “oleh”—pidgin for thief. The RSM (regiment sergeant major) said later that we disgraced him before his superior, referring to the camp commandant whom we also contrived to disgrace before the dignitaries present.
Captain Nurudeen Olalekan Sadeequ decided to lay down the law. We were commanded to sit on the grass in our immaculate paramilitary green-and-white NYSC-crested T-shirts. The captain barked “worship the ground,” and the RSM turned interpreter of army jargon to corpers commanded us to “stand on your heads”, then press-up.
And of course the bloody civilian ex-students were still rocking with peals of laughter and grumbling complaints. The drilling punishment went on luntil some sobre-minded, failing to see the mirth in standing on their heads, began to take the punishment to heart and shun their childish colleagues into cooperation.
With my arse poking in the air while my head anchored my body to the ground, I muttered, “Who send me go school?” and two girls beside me rocked with a seizure of giggles as uncontrollable as mine.
There was something striking about this captain that reminded me of Badmus and james, and made me want to base a plot on him. At least, a sane, rational, logical yet fantastic part of my mind—maybe it was the writer inside seeking another adventure—realised that. He looked cool as every newly commissioned captain just back from peacekeeping mission in Liberia ought to, and yet firm and totally in control. If he smiled, you went home with him. It was that enthralling. That was before he said he actually killed with the same face with which he smiled. One girl from UNICAL (Ruth Echa Ani was her name and she got wed midway through service to an army captain classmate of the infamous commandant, both of who had served under UNIMIL even though they didn’t know one another) whose father was in the army, explained to me how officers rose through the ranks from NDA—with its university-like 5-year programme—and the 9-month short-service for graduates who majored in professional courses and incidentally rose through the ranks faster.
We’d always convinced ourselves we’d dropped studentship and were officially corpers. The captain totally stripped us of everything human.
“From this moment on,” he said, “you will be addressed as cockroaches, slippers, wombats, or any other name the officers deem fit.”
“On no account should I grab you wearing anything other than the kit you have been provided.
“The field is a holy ground. I know many of you came here for sex. (Got that right!) If I grab you any where near this field …” He let the threat hang over our heads half spoken and more minatory that way. “I don’t make threat. Ask my men. I am not known for issuing threats.”
I think he intended us to deduce the obvious: that he didn’t issue threats he didn’t carry out. He had the habit of adding the clause if I grab you—if I grab your soul, and then letting the threat hang in the air unspoken. When we retired to our lodgings after each bruising session with him, we vengefully and mirthfully called him If-I-Grab-You behind his back.
“Several paths have been designated for your use. On no account must you use a path not designated for your use. If I grab your soul…”
“The mammy market closes at ten, I gather. Lights Out is ten-thirty. If I find you anywere near that mammy market at ten…
“From time to time I will be conduction impromptu parades. If you fail to attend any for any reason whatsoever and I grab you…
“For those of you who think you have balls—if I grab you. I don’t think there are hermaphrodites among you but some of you ladies think you have balls—if I grab you, I will squeeze your balls, those balls you think you have got.”
He had another intimidating habit. While he addressed the cockroaches he constantly paced in-between the lines.
“For those of you hide away in fellowship as a way of staying away from parades, know this: God has powers, but I have the power of God at my fingertips and I will not hesitate to use it. Hiding at fellowships when you are supposed to be on parade ground means you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. If I grab you…”

DAY 6
There wasn’t supposed to be PT on Saturday. Or so Airborne said. But the bugle sounded nonetheless. We trooped out onto the field like prisoners. Stragglers were frog-jumped.
Offenders guilty of offences ranging from wearing the wrong outfit to strolling to parade got “rolled”—which meant sitting, if you were lucky otherwise actually rolling, as the word said, in wastewater gurgling as thick as sewage from the camp kitchen. It didn’t matter if you had your whites on. In fact, the whiter your whites, you better a candidate you were for it once you ran afoul of Camp Regulations According to Sadeequ. You simply had to obey the commandant and then come out looking filthier than a sewer rat and so unspeakably fragrant you were the butt of general laughter. Of course, everyone sympathised with you later and prayed never to step in the shoes you’d just vacated. But it took a good deal of wise-arse bargaining and a hefty payment to the launderers to get clean again.
The commandant rolled someone today. No one was sure what he did except that his dressing wasn’t complete. The guy had on his white tee-shirt and khaki trousers and the commandant commanded him to roll in wastewater from the cooking areas of the eating houses in the mammy market.
There wasn’t much to do but stand and sing and jog, and the time made my feet ache inside my uncomfortably tight boots. They felt like they were going soft as pears packed in a tight haversack. And to think I’d have to have those boots on all day. The reprieve was only momentary: the few precious seconds that elapsed in changing from the white PT boots to the sturdy-soled canvass-instep ochre jungle. Simply, it was only a swap of one hell for another.
DAY 7
You’d never have though Muslims were ardent proselytisers. But drive from Abuja to Minna and you get a sense of intense proselytising and religious symbolism even along the highway.
Along the highway, at specific intervals, are white metal boards of four by three feet, each with carefully painted Arabic script.
Allah.
Allahu akbar.
La ilah illa Allahu.
The slogans flash by with a certain concealed intensity as you speed by. You don’t exactly see them as much as feel their subliminal impact etched onto your retina and brain.
Because Niger is a Shari’a state, it was to be expected. But not as road signs. But if that was a brand of proselytising, Shari’a or no Shari’a, the Christians did it one better. They easily made three-quarters of the camp residents.
Before drills every morning, the parade ground reverberated with loud Amens, Halleluyahs and Jesus, Pentecostal-style, echoing across the field of Abubakar Dada Senior Secondary School, which doubled as the camp, and at some distance bouncing off the hills surrounding Paiko. A lead charismatic picked a point of prayer and asked the crowd to pray. Everyone did the ardent supplication at once. The babble could only be silenced by the lead calling hoarsely “In Jesus’ name,” getting an equally raucous chorus of “Amen” before moving on to the next prayer point.
An uninitiated could think they’d wandered onto a field packed full with Pentecostal crusaders invoking the Holy Spirit.
Catholics and Anglicans ostensibly aren’t accustomed to praying in this fashion and I wonder they made of it. In not being given to intense Bible punching and Greek ranting, they had something in common with Muslims. The time used for prayers was disproportionate. The Christians took up nearly an hour, sometimes more; the Muslims’ murmuring in Arabic of few indistinct words lasted only minutes.
When Christians prayed the parade ground was reverently silent—except when the hour-mark was reached. When Muslims prayed, the parade could afford a modicum of reverence mixed not with snide remarks but with unintelligible murmurs that did more to insult sensibilities because of its forced unintelligibility.
The NYSC is a federal paramilitary outfit in a confessedly secular country. Yet you can have marathon praying sessions on military parade ground and fellowships sprouting all over the training-and-orientation camp. That leaves a lot to be explained about this country’s brand of secularism.
DAY 8
Ever since I read I Air Force Cadet I’ve wanted to join the military, in particular the Navy. Not as a lifetime career choice thing but on basis of a short-service enlistment that would last a few years so I could graduate just like Ola in the book and go on with additional experience.
Perhaps my greatest motivation was to get behind the curtain of secrecy that enshrouds military life. There was something exciting about that kind of life. When Sydney went for orientation camp in his time in March 2006 and sent home a barrage of text messages complaining about the rigours of regimental life, I thought he was crazy. It was no use whining on sms. What did he expect of military trainers? Not much, it seems. For me, it was particularly difficult because I wanted to diary my experiences at camp. Camp had no time to spare for thinking-and-writing processes, no moment to jot down even the simplest thoughts.
At 0330 we were awake and dressed in whites like cricket players, expecting the bugle with bated breaths at 0400 for parade. The parade itself lasted till 0700 when we broke up for bath and breakfast. The next parade was at 0900. We, about two thousand of us, spent the hours 0700 and 0900 queuing up for food.
Second set of parade, and the drills lasted till 1. then we broke up for lunch. Lunch was at 1300 but came at 1400 or 1430, and at 1530 the bugle was sounded for the next parade at 1600. You had to wash up before lunch and sometimes the bugle came before you could even get the food let alone eat it.
The third parade lasted till 1900, time for dinner, which you got at 2030 or 2100. Lights Out at 2230, but half an hour before that anybody found in the mammy market had the camp commandant to deal with.
There was allotted time for everything. And once the bugle sounded for a parade or some other activity, you just had to switch into mode for the latest activity. Everything else had to stop; nothing else dared matter. Even if afternoon meals actually began at 1400 instead of one hour earlier, the bugle for parade at 1530 meant you had to march, food or no food.
Now, it is sort of enjoyable. But there are times when I feel caged and can’t wait for the camp to end so I can do my stuff in the larger Niger society.
I guess the most annoying thing about regimental life is the routine—and for a civilian student, being told what, when, where and how was an insufferable irritation.
On Monday afternoon, the lunch alarm came at 1503. One guy was still trying to sleep the muster for parade sounded at 1545. The sleep-deprived young man flew into heights of drama more dramatic than the three witches in Macbeth.
“These bastards! I was just trying to sleep. I have been lying here and sleep hasn’t come. Fuck the military!”
The bugle sounded again to remind us it was time to hotfoot it.
“Shut up,” he screamed in frustration at the bugle blower who was making his life miserable at the moment. “Get lost! I don’t want to hear it.”
Later when he calmed down, he said if he’d known camp would be this hellish he’d have deferred his service and kept on deferring it until he was out of the country.
An Igbo guy dissolved into a paroxysm of complaints. He said it was frustrating because his camp activities had absolutely nothing in common with his discipline at university. The camp had confused his entire plans. He’d lost weight so much his parents couldn’t recognise him if they saw him. He couldn’t sleep. And the worst part that “scatters his brains”, he ranted, was the lack of sleep, since he was afraid to sleep for fear of being caught off guard by the bugle.
That which scatters his brains is the brain behind the design of the camp outfit. In the morning at 0400 when it is cold, we have to dress in short-sleeved tee-shirt and shorts; and in the afternoon, when it is sweltering hot, we have to put on khaki trousers and long-sleeved jackets the captain calls uniform.
DAY 9
Sule Ayuba once said blacks had cheating wired into their genotype. He was a military officer; he was our platoon commander and we were but corpers. Yet, he warned us, he would cheat if he had the opportunity. It was a chance, a call for extra caution.
He should have said students had quadruple DNA strands for cheating. They never seem to do enough of it. There was no dearth of people ready to lie, cajole and do anything to jump queues for registration, screening, payment, even and especially food.
Sometimes they always got in faster with their goals simply because they anticipated no fellow corper would do something as uncool as brushing them off. Anyone on queue would understand, the buddy-buddies they were, and cheats exploited the buddy-buddy feeling.
It was flagrant, considering a line of the NYSC oath that made reference to shunning corruption and bribery. One person answered that he’d stricken that line from his oath and quipped, “OYO”—on your own.

DAY 10
Airborne wasn’t the first person to say Nigeria had great plans on paper that failed at implementation.
Take Shari’a. Niger is a Shari’a state. I haven’t investigated in-depth the evidence to support that superficially, but it is apparent that there are more southerners visible than there are northerners. Or, if you took the region to represent faith, more Christians than Muslims.
The government seems to be reckoning without a youth paramilitary programme like that of the NYSC, where men would have to stand next to women in hijab on queues, where women hawk food to men in such close proximity and wear no head covering.
Are you sitting for this? There are cleaners employed to clean men’s bathrooms in the dormitories on a daily round while the men bath nude, as you can probably guess, in the shower stalls. These cleaners are all women. And just for full measure, on one edge of the camp is a spot (curious?) for green and dark bottles with liquid whose labels say contain 13 per cent alcohol by volume. And on Sundays, while fellowships go on, cars zoom into park to pick up the ladies, the guys have their phone memory cards full of porn. And dorm talk is the bawdiest you ever lived with.

DAY 11
Competitions began in the first week of camp. We presented a pantomime called Nigeria and its Many Problems or Water Don Pass Garri on the first Saturday night.
There were countless contests on camp. Miss NYSC, Miss Coca-Cola, Hot Legs, Bold and Beautiful, Mr Macho, Drinking Contest, Ayo Contest, soccer, drama, dancing, volleyball, cooking, quiz.
Platoon 4 (Ayuba calls it 4 Platoon, military-style; we call it Platoon 4, civvy-style—or Plantain 4 or Banana 4) began choosing contestants and arranging for future contests right after the drama went off on the first Saturday night.
Ruth volunteered to wax the pageant contestants’ legs, probably till they shone like a baby’s round bottom or the skinny pins of some olive-skinned thing of beauty soaking up the sun on some South Pacific island beach. One girl said she would teach them catwalking. Davies the drama director with a finger in every pie said he’d teach carriage and use of vocabulary. After all, the platoon’s potential entry for the Miss Coca-Cola contest although blessed with a complexion as ebony black as the liquid in a Coke bottle is cursed with a thick Igbo-accented tongue. As is the favour cat-eyed Miss NYSC when she speaks pidgin. Even though they looked like possible knock-them-dead contestants, the drama director had immense problems with their English tainted by their mother tongue.
Ruth, the girl with an army father, said she’d design and sew the costume to cut costs. I volunteered to sew if she’d do the cutting. That was perhaps the first time I would allow myself be drawn into platoon business. The second time I surprised myself by volunteering assistance for the cooking competition.
Then one bulky girl who constantly reminded me of Njide, my late and favourite cousin, said she’d enter the beer-drinking contest.

DAY 12
A drizzle next Monday morning would have put a damper on things, but didn’t. The jogging didn’t hold. When we came for HIV/AIDS seminar at 0900, it became warm and then gradually so unbearably hot that no one listened to the talk on voluntary counselling, testing and HIV/AIDS prevention anymore. We were roasting inside our khaki jackets and trousers in the sun. The drama presentation at the seminar fell on deaf ears and blind eyes.
Only the demonstration on condom use caught our attention. Everyone wanted to see with some prurient anxiety the latex slipping over a life-size wooden penis. The lewd comments about the penile model made it appear larger than life. The demo had barely started, the lubricant-impregnated rubber covering the friction-free smooth wooden penis when all began demanding their own condoms.
The demo people said we could get the CDs, that’s slang for the prophylactic latex, from the camp clinic later. That night we thronged the clinic for our compact discs.
By evening, a drizzle at 1600 broke up the afternoon parade and sent us scampering away, and we were quite happy to do just that.

DAY 13
On Tuesday I bet we wanted a repeat drizzle to send us back to our beds in the camp hostel. The drizzle came, lulled, then became a cloudburst.
There was no sign of going back. We jogged in it. We drilled in it for hours until we began to love it and fell all warm and aglow inside. A thin rainbow suddenly appeared and made everywhere look so much the colour of sparkling champagne someone said the Rapture was upon us.
We were cold when we finally broke. We rushed out of our wet clothes, bathed, put on dry khaki clothes that felt blessedly warm all of a sudden and lined up for tea so watery we needed to buy extra sugar and milk to make it drinkable to taste. But the warmth of the tea was welcome even though it came an hour late so that we chewed the bread on our way to drills at 0900.
We reported for man-o-war drills but gave up the time for Platoon 3, which had failed to complete theirs the day before due to downpour.
The soccer tournament commenced today. We would play on Friday.
Nigeria is a country where abandoned projects begin to take shape once a bigwig is scheduled to visit. On Wednesday there was no jogging but we did an impromptu cleanup in preparation for the DG’s visit. A lot of bigwigs came today, including topdogs from CBN, UBA, Union Bank, Diamond Bank and a guy who swore his textbook would help us pass job interviews of any kind at any company.
Before we joined the seminar of job provision in the sun, we did our man-o-war activities. Balancing Logs, Tunnel, Return-and-Gain or Swing-and-Gain, Spike Crawl, Wall, then a Mother Wall.
On a normal day, I should have scaled the little wall easily, but after having gone through six obstacles before the wall seemed too high or my limbs too weak.
Others were reserved for later: Jacob’s Ladder, Postman Walk, Scramble Net, Junior Tarzan, Burma Bridge, Tension Rope.

DAY 14
Tuesday at 2300, the tattoo parade signal sounded without a warning. The bugle had us all hissing and cursing and grumbling like old creaky automobiles. The bugle shocked me. I’d slept at 2000 and thought the bugle was the normal at 0400. But the phone alarm I’d set for 0345 hadn’t gone off. I thought my battery was dead. Others thought, more adventurously, that they either were dreaming or the dormitory was afire. We were still thinking and hissing when the soldiers began pounding on walls and doors like Nazi soldiers routing suspects out of the comfort of their homes in the dead of night.
There were highpoints, even in such distressing moment. Someone moaned, fearfully then but later vindictively, that it was like a robbery was going on. A girl chose those few twilight seconds snoozing and alertness to realise how bad it was to “rush” people from sleep: they could have heart attacks, she said. Another girl said she’d left her phone on her bed. Many came out in their nighties and slippers, and Udoye said the soldiers were rushing into the female hostels knowing full well what state of undress the girls would be in just to see “free breasts. Make them thank their God say them no see me. If them see me, I go talk o!”
The tattoo was for roll call, since some corpers couldn’t be accounted for. Guys got it firmly planted in their heads that the missing corpers had to be girls who’d gone with strange men to spend the night for paise. Runs girls, they tagged them, not the first time.
We returned to bed at 0100 and woke up promptly at 0400 for morning parade, roundly cursing the camp commandant. A few conspiracies to make his life hell were already bandying around walking-talking pairs by daybreak. It had been done on other camps where revolts succeeded and people would wonder why corpers revolted against a particular commandant. The conclusion would invariable be that he was one wicked, cruel son of a bitch.
The plotters thought platoon leaders should pull more clout with fellow corpers. I told them in passing even without knowing who they were (they were walking ahead of me and I had to pass them by anyway) that that was a no-brainer. They said nothing.
Anyhow the revolt had to be well orchestrated. A rebel voice would suddenly, when told to “ground arse” say, “Wetin sef,” and the revolt would ripple through the crowd, helped along by strategically planted rebels—and the next thing it would be corpers versus soldiers, an uneven match in number. And Sadeequ would be out of the camp.
Others were more willing to entertain amorous fantasies. On the night of the tattoo, a guy said boys skipping camp would be decamped, never girls. Girls knew where to touch the captain and even the formidable no-smiles camp commandant would be reduced to a whimpering, simpering, prattling baby all heated up with sexual passion. “Abi, them tell you say commandant no dey fuck?” the proponent asked brazenly. “Commandant na man. E get dick. Girls na devil” was the conclusion.
Someone opined later that morning that the commandant was being unyieldingly firm for some ulterior reason. If he ventured to tell a girl, the gist went, “come and see me,” that CHOSEN girl would go running at the double and spreading her legs wide open “as if them don work am keep,” a guy said. Translation: readymade. And what girl in her right senses, the general picture suggested, would dare refuse such a formidable man?
Once during cleanup one day, he walked on by and girls ogled his departing back—backside, rather. “God try for e body sha,” a girl remarked, a remark that became a for-girls-only chorus tinged with oohs and aahs.
Ayuba challenged the girls in his platoon: “Shebi una like the commandant, ba?” What answer did they chorus? Something like God had created the commandant on the best day of the week. No one knew what day it was for sure. Even boys were unnerved at the sight of his bare grabbing biceps of his upper arms.

DAY 15
Volleyball and soccer held today. We lost the volleyball game. Soccer was a losing battle right from go: 3-1 silenced me. After a pep talk and glucose binge, water and chewing-gum, it became 3-2, then 3-3, then moved on to penalty. The shouting, the chanting, the drumming, the mascotting, all were deafening.
Other contests seemed to be falling apart. Loudmouths were getting to our shoo-ins for Miss NYSC (which was later replaced with Miss Glo), Coca-Cola, Bold and Beautiful, Hot Legs. The loudmouths were trying to field their own personally favoured candidates to get in good with them. Rather, for the male loudmouths pushing forward female acquaintances, to get in good and hard into their flowery, satiny, silky pants.
All the initial contestants we’d been banking on began pulling out. And the boys didn’t want to relent on the bitching campaign, as though they could suddenly don boobs and catwalk on stage.
The girls were stupid to fall for the smear campaign and refuse to stand. Not that guys don’t know a thing about pretty girls and pageants, but girls don’t push their own ideas onto the male soccer team. So why didn’t the guys leave the girls well alone to their skinny legs and bikini business?
We won the soccer match and went wild, chanting. Ayuba! Ayuba! Ayuba! All the way across the field to the hostel. We shouldered him into the air.

DAY 16
Organising our entry for the cultural dance contest was a bitch of task. I suddenly became a timekeeper, which wasn’t too bad. I would ensure the dancers kept to the practised 8 minutes. The Efik lead singer was supposed to watch me for the countdown I would signal at 2-minute intervals. We arranged it that way.
We also arranged to meet at 1900 for a final rehearsal before the event at 2000. The turn-up was crazy. First, the rendezvous point was changed minutes to the meeting time and the drummers who’d been practising refused to show up. New drummers were picked and taught to make up a beat to match the rhythm of the Efik folksongs. A minute to appearing onstage we were still screaming and rushing around, getting our discarded shoes, slippers and shirts into safe keeping (in my care, that is), getting a singlet for one of the male dancers, taking the drummers blindly through the four song sequences. It was so hectic my head could have fallen off for the migraine pounding me silly.
Once Platoon 4 was called onstage we had no option but to go, prepared or not. Bashir, the platoon leader, made a thirty-second introduction that fell in with the allotted ten minutes. Ruth led the dancers out onto the stage. In a single file, their green wrap-around skirts and white blouses of cheddar were uniform, as was the sway of hips and busts. Lead singer and another Calabar who earlier promised to watch for my timing became so engrossed with the singing and dancing they forgot my humble timekeeper self existed. From somewhere in the wings, I tried to get their attention by screaming. They never even looked back up until the moment my voice went hoarse. Doris, the platoon’s representative on the socials committee, came around backstage to observe that the dancers were packed too close to the back of the stage. I had to somehow let them know the watching, rowdy audience and judges thought they were afraid to move to the front of the stage, or at least occupy the centre. My screams fell on deaf, singing, dancing ears.
Eight minutes wound up. Ruth, when the rest of the troupe had exited the stage, explained the origin of the dance for the benefit of the judges, since the crowd wasn’t really interested in such genetic material. Then she came offstage dancing and twirling her body in the serpentine, sultry way that only her Efik tribespeople are known for.
Judging by the resounding applause, it was a success. We came fifth in the tournament. Translation: we had to re-costume (with more flamboyance and at more expense), recoup, retrain and come for the finals. It was a plus even though we’d lost the drama qualifier.
At the end of the show, I grew heads at the applause and lost the hoarseness in my throat for some time. My voice was a gravelly croak. It was a success considering the dancing troupe was an ill-sorted bunch of unserious individuals whom you couldn’t keep focused on one routine for any length of time.
The success was both infectious and contagious. Even the issue of missing slippers, as we later discovered, couldn’t dampen it. But I doubted I wanted to go through the arse-busting rigours anytime soon.

DAY 17
It’s not easy cooking for people, especially if they never bothered to appreciate how much you work your fingers to the bone: the two thousand thankless bodies that each platoon had to cook for in turns. Platoon 4 had to do so on Friday. Again the bunch picked to do the chore on the platoon’s behalf was ill sorted and there were more people more interested in stirring a pot of boiling soup while posing for the camera, video and still, than actually working. None of the grime and soot to ruin that special Kodak moment.
The smoke billowing from the six, seven fireplaces was thick, black. The flames had to be kept roaring. It was hard bone-baring work, which made me appreciate what the kitchen staff of women had to do everyday all day for the 21 days of camp.
Breakfast was ready on time—six 40-tonne iron tripod pots into which we dumped 800grammes (two cans) of Cowbell each and an equal amount of powdered milk to go with 1300—we counted!—bread loaves.
Lunch was a basinful of okra made into soup in a 50-tonne pot to go with four bags of yam flour made into amala in those six 40-tonne pots filled with water.
For dinner—rice—an equal number of pots and seven big bowls of tomatoes ground to fill the 50-tonne pot. The work was back breaking, as was keeping the fire going. We did it so well and soon it was the women’s turn to admire the hard work involved in keeping the fire raging under the cooking pots. Yet I praised the women and their work the more. Next time I queue for food, I silently promised myself, I will not diss the dish or make snide comments about delays or taste or quality. I vowed unqualified acceptance of whatever the women spooned into my food flask.

DAY 18
The scene is breathtaking. On top of the rock, the entire earth falls back into a vista of green. Sitting on the rocks feels like sitting on the highest point on earth and Niger rolling before you becomes your world, your footstool and you the king.
On the right is greenery broken only by a dark tarred road fingering through the green like a snake. The green is a verdant ring of grassland. Few round-topped trees dot the landscape like mushrooms or broccolis. A phone network mast is incongruous in the middle.
The scene throws backward into a range of mountains more like huge stones God left in Niger. Leftward it flows into a closer mountain and continues in unbroken green and mushroom trees and verdant green rug. (Several roads, earth and tarred, wind through the landscape. There are two more phone masts.) It continues all the mind-blowing way to the extreme left.
In the foreground hundreds of the village’s square-shaped houses and a water tower squat at the base of the mountain.
From the bottom upward, lemon grass, grasses and legumes blossoming with wild flowers carpet the side of the mountain and grow almost over the smaller rocks all over the surface.
On top the sky meshes with the green vegetation in the distance.
People are praying, singing, buying and selling on the mountaintop. Business is brisk; sellers tacked at least N10 on the price of everything. Calls are going out to relatives and friends, cameras are clicking like mad. All traders at mammy market came ahead of us.
And people are zonking out. Soldiers have to take their unwieldy packages of unconscious inconveniences down the mountain on their backs or shoulders on Red Cross stretchers.
It is amazing. A few people pleaded sick and stayed away from mountaineering and we thought we were brave to be going on it, but flaking out wasn’t part of the deal. And seeing the local children surefootedly scaling the mountain like a bunch of mountain goats makes the weakness of the unfortunate corper more agonizing.
We’d began the ascent very earlier before the sun’s rays warmed the mountainside and lifted the dew from the night before. We were still on top when the sun came up and, being close to the sun made us feel hotter and swelling. It took hours for the long chain of hand-linked humans to get down, but we felt we’d conquered the mountain. After that only a few the following mornings would still look at it at assembly—sorry, at parade.
Getting down was the hardest part. We’d gone up steep faces of the mountain using a rope secured to a rock. No one knew only a stone securely held us from plunging back down to our deaths at the base of the mountain until. We found that only when we got closer to the peak.
We took another route, supposedly of less resistance, on the way down the sheer side the mountain, stepping gingerly on clumps of stones, hands linked in a human chain. It was hairy. I would have felt easier if I had both my hands free and to myself, but the confinement in my opinion made descent hazardous. If I crashed for any unfathomable reason I would fall into the guy ahead and send him tumbling into the guy in front of him. The domino effect I would set up would maintain its momentum and have each one of us concertinaing down the sheer face of the mountain until one body wedged us and stopped us reducing to shattered bones and bloody pulp.
That happened only in my dark imagination. But one guy did fall, though. He was zonked. He dashed his head against rock and fell bleeding. In his inebriation, he said soldiers were silly for allowing alcohol sellers up the mount. Girls drank but neither got drunk nor fell. a conclusion was on every lip: the guy was stupider than the soldiers for exceeding his intoxication limit. Earlier on parade before ascent, he’d been caught with a glass and bottle of gin by the camp commandant.

DAY 19
Bold & Beautiful contest was a row. The hall had never been packed more full. Everyone shouted invectives and slurs and encourage, depending on their mood, as each girl made her entrance. The chants changed with each girl.
A B C D E F G H … I. This referred to a girl so slender she looked like the letter I.
Over age, over size. For a girl on the plump side. Read: gross.
You too dey. For a girl they considered phat.
Mummy de-de, oyoyo. For a girl they considered subtly nubile and obviously more fit for a mother than a pageant, especially if she was big.
The entry score music also changed with each contestant, and changed the mood of the crowded audience. The voices were chorusing the song African Queen more than the DJ was playing it. African China would have died for the reception.
This guy gave jokes so dry the crowd couldn’t wait to boo him off the stage. That moment came when a group of four girls came on to present a riff on Rihana’s Baby, come share my world. Why not? The quartet of females had on slinky black trousers, thin white blouses that outlined all natural and enhanced curves. They knotted the lower hem of the blouse high above their navels, baring a swathe of swarthy skin, glittering enticingly in the dark and fuelling the raging testosterone. They did things with their enhanced anatomy. The hip swaying and bucking and twisting, Rihana style, were all calculated to titillate.
The contestant girls gave eye-opening answers. One didn’t know the full meaning of NACA. Another said Tony Blair—or was it Nelson Mandela? Even that part is unclear—was secretary-general of the UN. (Don’t know how Kofi Annan swallowed that.)
The girl from Platoon 4 weighed in second runner-up and somehow that was enough for my, for us. But I am wondering whether both girls who wanted to stand for Platoon 4 were both named Ruth.

DAY 20
All hell broke loose on the morning of September 22. We were told about night inspection that would involve us dressing up our bed for the soldiers to inspect. Only it didn’t turn out that way.
At 0200 most were yet to sleep. Others had only just slept off when the rouse began. We marched out, panicked, after the RSM’s initially entered (though an apologetic one) to tell us to clean up.
Sadeequ demanded a thorough clean-up of our surroundings, a cleaning roster, roll-call of all corpers in the dorm and a waste bin to be situated to one side of the dorm door, all of which he’d be back to inspect, especially the cleaning, in half an hour.
“Permission to carry on, sir?” asked the hostel leader.
He granted it and left.
Clean-up began and was completed in a huff. Then things turned sour. First, Anfal the hostel leader, said to contribute money for a dustbin. Some agreed, more refused. Someone said it wasn’t our place to buy waste bin or even any form of clean-up, that money had been provided by the federal government for all of the camp’s administration.
It was only unfortunate that the politically adept smooth-talking GPC Nwokoro, the state coordinator, and his cohorts had eaten up everything. Angel said we were graduates who’d spent aluta-ised years at university and should be able to stand for our rights and ourselves.
Everyone was shouting at the top of their voice, espousing reason to not be treated like babies, resentful of being woken up at 0200 for something as droll as a cleanup, resentful that a camp administration was only inflicting the cleanup as punishment after Minister for Intergovernmental affairs, youths and sports, Dr Grace Ogbuche, lambasted the camp authorities.
Rationalisations were all over the place. In minutes the camp was like a university campus spoiling for Aluta. Everyone was spoiling for mass action.
It began on the score of seemingly brutal military drills, everything Capt Sadeequ had ever donee.
We confronted and corralled him, drowning out his once militant voice as he tried to speak reason. He wouldn’t climb onto a higher pavement to address us; if he did that, he would expose himself to stoning. Better to stay in the heart of the seething crowd. So he remained in the middle of the crowd, at the same level so if some hotheads at the back of the mob threw stones the coolheads close to him would be pelted as well.
His once commanding voice was hoarse. When he eventually began to speak, he began with “Gentlemen and ladies” not “clowns.” The shouting and jeering silenced him.
He couldn’t leave for his safety with the entire camp rowdy. The rowdy bunch however began to split into factions, some against, some for. But after an hour of screaming and jeering nothing meaningful had been said. The good levelheads favoured constructive talk; the bad roughheads said Sadeequ had nothing to say that they wanted to hear.
Sanding and stoning and watering began. But then he’d pulled away and we—the good group that didn’t want him lynched that night—hived off along with him, while he laboriously explained the Nigerian factor, the disparity between on-paper and on-the-ground realities, the politics of corruption (or the corruption of politics) and gift money [the minister’s hundred-grand gift] the essence of bugle timing, the instilling of military training and discipline, the indispensability of name calling in military circles. During his training, he said, they were called worse names—addressed even by the given name of their mothers. Think of would-be military officers going by names like Mabel and Cynthia.
Some reasoned along with him. Not all understood that a military camp was supposed to be just what the name says—timed, regimented and intentionally designed to be uncomfortable.
He called us clowns, he explained, not derogatorily but because we made him laugh, exactly what the name suggested. At that statement, a fresh aluta erupted, all screaming for his head. And while he explained in that circle of bodies, he looked pitiable, human. I pitied him. We even shepherded him away to save him from being lynched. He’d never been to a university, he explained later when he came to be interviewed at OBS. That’s why he seemed lost in the aluta crowd. And his only mission in Liberia with the UN, keeping peace and working with refugees, hadn’t prepared him for an alutaised mob.
Everything military and mysterious about him was stripped off like a veneer, demystified and humbled. He lost the soldierliness that had kept him impregnable.
Before that, it took time for us to understand he wasn’t responsible for our welfar. Actually none but one of the grievances made out to the coordinator concerned the commandant.
Camp administration by night denied knowledge but claimed responsibility by morning. Sadeequ was gone, it seemed. With all the clamouring all night, what could have been expected and what more could have pacified the mob? Nwokoro had written to the Brigade Headquarters that he wanted Sadeequ out. by this time we were still seething and so incensed that we did an about-turn and screamed that he himself had to go. He almost had a heart attack standing right there before us, uncomprehending. It became we-want-Sadeequ all over the place. With the captain’s senior officers from the barracks right there while we screamed for him like a demented bunch, it is uncertain what they thought but the clamour must have hyped their estimation of him.
Everyone should have known he was a shy guy. Ruth said he actually about-turned girls and spoke to their backs to avoid looking them in the eye. He never made eye contact.
He confessed to being a shy guy but he preyed on that very weakness in others because it made him feel more in control.
The self-effacing expose was just too much for any military officer, I felt ashamed for him. Especially when I heard, or thought I heard, tears in his voice and saw it in his eyes as the coerpers overwhelmed him that night.
I guess shouldering him in front of his seniors who’d come to relieve him of his duties and for damage control salvaged his career reputation, which had temporarily plunged and instantaneously being tarnished in the eyes of the brigade top brass.
He said he wasn’t happy with his present duty in the army. He was a physicist who wanted to make things. He had this mantra; “At the end of the day, the only thing you have is what’s upstairs, in your head.” He wanted to make things with his hands. In the armies of advanced countries, like the US, he said, the greatest advances in science and technology begins in military labs before filtering down into civilian use. He was disillusioned. He weas changed to the man who was everywhere and with everyone.
We said we would declare Sep 22 Corpers’ Day, sort of like Independence Day. Ours was the third camp nationwide to stay a revolt and a formidable Batch B. the victory got to our heads. We boasted about how we could uninstall and reinstate any commandant.
After that the camp became a campus. No soldier shoppted you, no grabbing, no frogjump, no carrying. Everyone did as they pleased. Bugles sounded and hours after the hour people were still strolling out leisurely. Mufti was all over the place. Of course, trust us to abuse freedom like we seemed to believe Sadeequ had abused power himself. He came one of us—and on thing was clear: we loved him. His human side wowed many into stupidity and sentimentality and girls brimmed with sympathy and puppy love.
I just don’t like the feel of the camp anymore.
Deji had been going on and on about camp and service and trekking, but his last message said he’d had enough. I wonder what that meant.

DAY 21
Endurance trek held on Saturday 23 September. The moon had been sited in Saudi Arabia and muslims were to stay behind on camp as well as the sick and the weak.
The trek became a jog. We jogged the first phase of the distance to an unknown destination. It took 2 hours and 2 minutes. We broke, rested, ate, drank.
The second phase stretched longer but was shorter timed. We practically raced through in one hour, pushing the man-o-war and soldiers into running and forcing everyone else in the long file of humans to run. Which was treacherous. The terrain was unfamiliar—we jumped into the air to leap over water puddles before we even saw the marshy ground ahead of us; we squished through marshes, waded through water, peeled through tight bush with arms stretched skyward above our heads.
Soldiers couldn’t stop us anymore. The last few minutes as the camp swung into sight were a riot. We raced, panting. We loved it. To think, only yesterday we’d stubbornly, childishly declined to go on the trek.

DAY 22
On Thursday we went for the dance finals and came fourth from a previous fifth position.
The next night, Micah appeared for Mr Macho. It was a hormonal thing. Young hunky men baring their all and all and making girls shriek and squirm in their seats while guys passed lewd comments and bawdy remarks. He made one highlight: ripping his shirt off his body on stage. But he came seventh.
Chidimma finally got over the dirty comments she’d been getting in the badmouth campaign, finally making up her mind to represent the platoon. She contested for Miss Coca-Cola and, despite being darker than coke, came eighth.
Bashir Bello, the platoon leader, was under pressure—fire, really—to give account of platoon expenditure and balance accounts. There are some expenses Ayuba made that Bash didn’t understand, he said, and couldn’t explain it to a platoon set to tear him apart. And it would be bad—for him, that is, for going through the agitation—if he didn’t touch a cent of the money. Actually, the money wasn’t even in his charge.
“Wallahi, I am afraid,” he told Ruth and I the night before he was to open up the books.
I sympathised with him. Leadership isn’t easy, especially with the kind of people we are—civilian students, now corpers who think university confers a right never to be cheated at anything.

DAY 23
You couldn’t imagine the sort of places the endurance trek took us through. Forests so thick I could see a potential hero/heroine character streaking through like some real-life Guyver pursued by a bunch of military grunts desperate to put several bullets through him. it was ripe jungle for a war story. Hillsides so scenic they were unbelievable. Brooks you could cross in one pace. In some places you couldn’t walk without your legs brushing against bush.
The natives we ran into along the trek path were friendly with a dash of piquant, unquestioningly curiosity. They took seconds off sitting outside their tiny huts, working their farms and washing their clothes in the little brooks meandering across the rocky land to say Sannunku all the way. Yaya yau. Barka da rana.
The huts were round as the innuits of the Eskimos, round as dwellings of old, made of sun-dried thatched reeds, a parabolic hole for entrance in front and a door fashioned by tying dried reeds together. Only one entrance led inside. Above the door was a high little window only big enough to hold a six-year old mischievous brat bent on climbing out it. The hut was scarcely 7feet high and the door was half that height. You had to bend at the waist to get in the doorway. If you sat on your haunches, the top of the doorway just about touched your head.

DAY 24
Miss Glo contest came up on Saturday night, almost the last social event on camp. There were very high stakes from the start. Reason; the sponsorship was by Globacom and Equatorial Trust Bank. And it turned out to be a quiz contest instead—four rounds of questioning. Girls entering pageants expect to be questioned somewhat and many will do their part to make certain they don’t come across on stage as beauty without brains. But four rounds of questions were over the top. If the girls know they were coming out for a quiz, a comedian said, no thought of mind-blowing prize would have made them enter the contest.
Either the scoring was based less on the answers the girls gave or Platoon 4 was compensated. If the judges scored on the bases of composure, confidence, knock-them-dead appearance, then platoon 4 could have won. The girl contesting on our behalf had all that and one more. She’d been modelling and knew enough runway and catwalk tricks to remind me of Toni Coldsweat.
The dispute began when only the first and second positions remained for grabs and Platoon 4 was still standing. When the second was mentioned and it was obvious Platoon 4 was going home with the bacon, shouts of “Ojoro” rent the air. Everyone was screaming that she didn’t deserve it, and it came as a surprise even to us her platoon members. After all she failed to give reply to the full meaning of NEEDS and the colour of the camp pickup truck. But it was our first and only first position in any contest and we erupted into jubilation, hugging and snapping photos and dancing, and the new Miss Glo acted like a real beauty queen. She hugged very daintily, fanning herself with her fingers, rushing for a Fanta while everyone gave her some air before she really decided to be a true pageant winner and faint.

DAY 25
Now I understand why Bash was afraid of the audit. Everyone was screaming blue murder and Bash had to cautiously, almost reluctantly, mention each item on the list while waiting to be pounched upon. He was prone to taking offence when asked to repeat a certain item. There was this annoying guy who came after everything had almost concluded and said it was null and void because he, his royal majesty his nibs, hadn’t been there. He’d warned he couldn’t make it that day, that the audit should have been held the next day so he could attend and that he must be on the committee for Campfire Night.
All platoons were at war over their finances. There was just a lot of embezzlement that people couldn’t stomach: cooked figures, trumped-up expenses and ridiculous prices—N400 pair of shoes, N10,000 recharge card for calls, N5000 for each pageant contestant. Wonder what those embezzlers will do in office if less than 100 grand in 21 days touched them off to show their true colours.
It is difficult to believe the same people screaming and bawling lewd comments at Miss Glo on Saturday night as the contestants filed out would be enraptured with the gospel the next morning.
First they bathed, dressed to kill, struggled for food on queue and zoomed into service to praise God. And the enthralment was utter. A pin could have been heard dropping to the floor. The hush was total as bawdy minds listened raptly to the gospel.
Amazing how quickly people can change. Everyone’s got some mercury in them.

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Wrong.

You can’t know how shocking it was to wake up for drills at 4am on Wednesday 6 September to rain. We fretted at going out in the rain, half praying the soldiers would forget the drills.

Oh, no, the bugle sounded and we marched out in white shorts, shoes, socks and tee-shirts, looking like old pot-bellied cricket players.

I got the shocker on the parade ground. We mustered into platoons in three files and began singing and clapping and praying. It was shocking, to say the least. It lasted for nearly half an hour, then the Shuaibu lady came and demanded more prayers—Christian and Muslim, according to the camp timetable. The Christian prayer warrior got the reassuring support of everyone, the Muslim got scanty, scattered responses to his lilting Arabic.
The jogging began spiritedly. The first jog was a flop. This, the second for me, led by Sergeant Ayuba aka Airborne—or Counterforce, as he sometimes called himself—leader of 4 Platoon, was great. He was anticipated, though. Every crazy song he led got resounding refrains in chorus.

If you smoke, Abacha government no go worry you.

Dem don tire, dem don tire. Lazy corper, dem don tire.

See monkey…worwor.

Adamma adamma adamma.

Chop akara dey go, moi-moi no dey.

There was more clapping and loud stomping than actual jogging accompanying the songs.

Airborne is Calabar but speaks intense Hausa, and even looks it, so that when he mentioned being Calabar I had to look at him twice to make sure he wasn’t kidding.

“I am a military trainer,” he said to make it clear why he needed utmost cooperation from 4 Platoon. “I train soldiers who are not ready for combat, not civilian corpers who are less than paramilitary.” One girl who speaks hausa, wears a veil and manages to look Yoruba (actually her mother was) called us semi-soldiers.

“When I hit a soldier, I feel hardness. And that spurs me,” Airborne went on. “But if I hit you [meaning civvy corper] I feel soft, and I don’t like it. Hardness makes me happy.”

He really took on physical training with gusto. Once the PT was over and we got back from jogging, he commenced warming-down exercises, as he expertly called them, to restore stretched muscles and stop them from tearing. Many were dangerously close to experiencing that firsthand.

PT for nearly 2000 lazy grumbling corpers was no picnic, but each platoon was as ready to outdo the others as were the platoon commanders happy to see their platoon was better and exciting rivalry into the others.

From the front a-jogging begins/from the back a-marching begins/front the left a-jogging begins/from the right a marching begins.

Jogging no be punishment. Na our normal training.

No one knew how prophetic those lines really were then.

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A few minutes before it commenced, soldiers came in and chased everyone out. It was unbelievable. Usually only uniformed corpers who’d through with registration should be mustered for drills. Seeing them squirm through the rigours of rising early and marching through the early-morning mist was supposed to be vengeance against them for successful registration while others stayed all night and slept in open classrooms and in open air.
However, the stupid soldiers ordered all and everyone out on parade.

Public relations officer Binta Shaibu made a few comments, taught the NYSC anthem and made the mistake of using the word “retire.” The word was taken literally, the civilians we were. She’d actually said, “when you retire…” and we didn’t hear the rest. We took off, all racing to get back to the registration hall first. It took four soldiers armed with 3-feet poles to send us back to the parade ground.

We hesitantly joined the morning jog—and found it both distasteful and exciting. Once the jog was over we ran back to the hall for registration and continued standing on queues. There were more people willing to cheat and jump queues than there were people willing to organise it.

Hours later I got to the front of six lines for registration. Check in. Collect counterfoil. Check documents. Registration by state and discipline. Check filled-in forms. Collect ID and publications. Pick up kit. Reclaim luggage. Register for hostel accommodation.

I went for evening drill, queued up for dinner, took a bath and slept once in a long time.

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He turned out to be a fellowship recruiter, actually a music director with Redeemed. The other two men with him were colleagues.

“What’s the thing you need most?” another man, who I later was told was the president of the fellowship, asked. He was called Papa Wale: papa for president, wale for his first name.
I thought he expected my answer to be inevitably “Jesus,” and said nothing.

“Mercy,” he continued, answering his own question. “Mercy is what you need.”

It was kind of good to come into camp a day earlier. That way you could register faster once the camp opened officially. With opening yet to happen, many would be stranded. Not every one of us who came a day before was sure to get registered early, however, and the accommodation slots were so few many were left homeless virtually.

Redeemed has a family house, they told me, and anyone was welcome to stay there regardless of Christian denomination. And they promised, should I go with them, to convey from the family house in Minna, a 15-minute drive from Paiko, to the camp next morning so I could register early.

It was a blessing. The worst thing that could happen to anyone in a foreign land is to be stranded, with no place to lay your head while lugging your luggage about.

They had the same message for every new arrival they could get. They ignored—even laughed—at those newcomers with a strong overweening sense of independence who simply zoomed by as if they knew any better.

One camp official offered us newcomers temporary accommodation in exchange for our call-up letter, which we could get back in the morning.
We took him up and forgot the fellowship, which settled for later comers.

Once we settled down, the issue of security came up and we had to find a way to beat theft till morning. We’re still trying and looking over our shoulder.

No hope whatsoever.

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The N-word makes it all different.

First I got the call-up for Niger and wondered, where on earth is it? Actually, it was—where is Niger on the map of Nigeria? The most I got was that it was IBB’s home state—if having perhaps the largest state linked with the most maradonic of past presidents made any difference.

My second thought was actually a disappointment. Strangely, I expected to be thrown farther than the belt in the middle—maybe some outlandish place like Sokoto or Borno, and I could switch places with Gladys Ichifitanure or Lawrence Isaiah. No.
Departure for Niger was filled with dread and anticipation.

Dread: what would camp be like? How many hoops would sardonic military trainers march me through? Who could survive?

Anticipation: camp was an approximation of life on some exotic Caribbean beach that doubled as destination for sex tourism. Camp would be fun, games, sweat, sex, booze—all the sins and vice a soul could bear before death—crammed into 21 days of depravity.

That pull of sin is strong. That’s why it was easy to stare through the bus window at the countless hills and boulders, at a landscape that looked like someone had sprayed pebbles as big as houses all over the place and you simply had to bu9ild your house on them. Isn’t that the rockiest foundation!
It was eye-opening in ways both good and bad. I haven’t seen much of the denizens and it seems there are more southerners than I can count northerners, even though Shari’a operates here.
Perhaps it is different in Niger, and maybe the moon has to be different too.

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POSTMARK PAIKO

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Life was never going to be the same.

Living in the north of the country has its ups and downs, good and bad.

21 days on camp, bootcamp, sort of, was neither heaven nor hell. I tried not to pass judgement, not just to watch but take part in those 21 brutal days.

everything is recorded here, blow by blow, for you!

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A week later, a popular park in the same city was hit. Four personal buildings lining the major road, the same road that runs from Lagos all through to Onitsha, caught fire, again in the middle of the night. No explanation has been given for it. And none seems forthcoming.

market security arrangement is becoming a gravy train for some people desperate to cash in around this city. Not least because women desperate to protect their wares can be browbeaten into complying with fees of any sort on demand. Sleight of hand, outright threat of bodily harm and seizure of stock can force tradeswomen to comply with the socalled hooligans in the marketplace.

Because of the finances involved in securing a market, many young and able bodied men currently run clandestine vigilante services in the name of market security, for which they get paid hundreds of thousands of naira pooled from women traders. And then there have been cases where they enlisted the help of local police to seize goods of "defaulting traders" until demanded payments were made.

Last week it was Edaiken market. This week it was Ramat Park. What market will be next? How do local women whose families depend on their contributions to the family purse start all over after losing everything they ever owned in the inferno? Seriously, there are families that don't eat unless someone, a mother to say the least, goes to market and sells something. Dinner doesn't come easy.

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