Tomi had been sitting in front of her laptop for the past hour, watching the different sizes of circles rotate around each other. The header of the page was green, with an image of legs in orange khaki boots with black soles. For each of the legs, the right was arched at a 90-degree angle and the other leg was sturdy on the floor.
She stood up from the grey comfy chair and paced the full length of the dining room. If the tempered glass table with marble legs and the six dining chairs were removed, the dining area could serve as a mini football pitch. There was a water dispenser at a corner and a full-length fridge on the opposite side. An oak table cabinet was at the other corner close to the window, and on it was a beaded vase that had no flowers in it.
Tomi wiped off the pool that had formed on her forehead. She’d returned to her sit and the page had finished loading. Staring her in the face was her call-up letter. She rubbed her palms together and leaned closer to see the state she’d been posted to.
She’d bragged that she wouldn’t be posted to any state outside of the South West zone of the country. In fact, her ‘plug’ had assured her that Lagos was a sure bet for her. She’d paid him a hundred and fifty thousand Naira to influence her posting.
“Hey, where were you posted?”
She received a WhatsApp notification from Sam, her best friend. They’d met in their first year of uni and had been joined to the hip ever since. There’d been rumours around school that they were an item, but they both knew there was nothing more than friendship between them.
Tomi retreated to her room and curled up in her bed. She deliberated between calling her ‘plug’ and giving him an earful or sleeping away the hot afternoon. She turned on the AC and switched off her phone. There must have been over a hundred messages on her class’s group chat by now with her former classmates sharing their posting status, hurling insults at their ‘plug’ and lamenting about the woes they’d heard about the states they were posted to.
Tomi tossed and turned in her bed. Her mother had told her not to pay that huge amount of money to the guy. He sounds dubious and hungry, her mum had said. She wasn’t sure how she was going to break the news to her mother that it hadn’t worked out. Her eyes caught the pear-shaped clock hanging close to her half-opened wardrobe. It was almost 4pm. Her mother would be home soon. She closed around this time and barring any traffic she usually got home in less than thirty minutes.
She buried her head beneath her pillow as though it would drown the thought of serving far away from home. She’d thought of all possibilities. Her mother wasn’t going to fork out another huge sum. Tomi didn’t want to touch her savings either. She’d worked several jobs in her last two years at uni before she could save up about three hundred thousand. She had plans for it and it wasn’t NYSC posting.
Tomi was sandwiched between piles of travel boxes at the back seat of Jehovah is Great Motors. She’d booked a seat by the window and had paid for two spaces so her box could take the other. For whatever reason, the second seat she’d paid for was non-existent. The seat in front of her had bags underneath it which made her legs bunched up. The journey was to last almost fourteen hours and barely three hours into the journey she couldn’t feel her legs. They were bent in an awkward shape and blood seemed not to flow to the lower part of her limbs.
The bus plunged into a deep pothole, sending Tomi’s head against the window and the suitcases that had been piled up high fell on her. The driver continued speeding on the dusty road riddled with speed bumps. Tomi didn’t know when tears began to slip down her cheek. She made no effort to wipe them off. The only thing likely to see her tears were the luggage as most of the passengers were snoring loudly.
After an endless journey, they got to a place where a white signboard covered with red dust read Welcome to Enugu State—The Coal City State. Tomi didn’t know when she burst out again. This time she drew the attention of the people seated before her. One of the men who wore a red cap glanced at her, shook his head and muttered some words in Igbo. His accent was as thick as the dust that had gathered in the air as vehicles sped off.
Tomi waved down a taxi that took her to the NYSC orientation camp in Agwu. She loaded her medium-sized suitcase in the back seat and sat by the driver in front. He spoke to her in Igbo. Tomi glared at him. She was still trying hard to control the emotions paddling on the surface and wasn’t interested in what was a one-sided conversation.
“Fine girl, ya not answeling me,” he said in an Igbo accent.
“I don’t understand what you’re saying. I’m not Igbo.”
“Ha! And you look like Igbo o. See as your skin is yellow. Omalicha.”
Tomi ignored him the rest of the trip as he jabbered on about how the people of Enugu are friendly and love to welcome visitors. She turned her thoughts to the green trees that lined up the road, each fading off in smoke from exhaust pipes and the falling darkness of the evening. The Taxi came to a halt in front of a rickety iron bar gate.
“Fine girl, can you give me ya number?”
Tomi cast him a disgusted glance, hopped out of the car, grabbed her luggage from the back and walked into the compound. She pushed the gate that was almost falling apart and stopped in her tracks, taking in the place she was going to spend the next three weeks. It looked like misery. Tomi inhaled the dusty air and coughed it out in a sharp breath.
There was an uncompleted building at the front. The walls surrounding it had circular holes as if someone had punched through them. There were thick bushes around. The pathway was covered with some weed that had pushed through the ground. They were a mix of brown and green. As Tomi moved along, she spotted other blocks of flat that didn’t look any better than the first one. People in white shirts and shorts were hanging around. She managed to get to the entrance and spoke to a light-skinned man whose head was a fallow ground in the middle. The man pointed to one of the buildings and placed his head back on the table.
Tomi had no idea what happened between when she got to the room and the following day, but by 5:30am, a loud, piercing sound from a bugle or whatever it was jolted her out of bed. She bumped her head into the wooden bunk above her.
“This is misery!” She cried out, rubbing her throbbing forehead.
She hurried into the bathroom and met with sweaty, smelly bodies wrapped in different colours of towels. There were about two windows in a room of about twenty people, which now contained more heads than necessary. The paint-chipped, brownish-white ceiling fans whose controls were nowhere to be found did a good job of circulating the heat all night. She went back to her bed and lay for what she thought was a five-minute nap, but she jumped out of bed when she heard scampering feet and continuous banging on the door.
She hurriedly collected her white outfit from her bag and threw it on, running out to the parade ground. The cold early morning air stung her bare arm and leg. She ran back to the room but the grim-faced female soldier shouted her off. “Chicken!” She’d lashed out.
She rubbed her forearm with her palm to get in some heat, the one she would wish away in the afternoon when the sun begins to spit its fire. After the devotion organised by corpers’ fellowship, she joined a platoon arranged in rows of six since she was yet to know where she belonged. The band began to beat the drums and blow the trumpets for the anthem.
Youths obey the clarion call… voices burst out after the intro.
Let us lift our nation high
Under the sun or in the rain
With selflessness and dedication
Nigeria is ours, Nigeria we serve…
Tomi looked around her to see some of the corp members mumbling and miming. She beat her lip and smiled. She wasn’t the only one singing rubbish. She allowed her mind to forecast the rest of the days she was going to spend here. She allowed it dwell on the line under the sun or in the rain. It ought to sing in the cold or in the heat because her experience of both in less than 24 hours was more than her body could take.
NYSC for unity
Hail Nigeria, our great nation.
The band and singers came to a halt, and the commandant raised his voice for them to recite the pledge before dispersing them. Tomi dashed to the bathroom before it became occupied again. She fetched water in an iron bucket from the tap that flowed in trickles. She’d heard from some of the occupants of the room that they had to fetch water from another block almost 15 minutes away, and they were lucky if the water ran from the taps.
Tomi joined the queue for corpers yet to be registered. There were not so many people at the time, and in less than an hour, she got to the front of the line. She already had her ID card, statement of result from her university, and medical report, amongst other required documents. She’d seen how the woman at the table shouted at people who had a slight delay in tendering their documents. The woman was as short as her temperament, her accent as thick as her body. Tomi could barely hear her as she punctuated her statement with Igbo words and phrases, most of which were insults hurled at the corpers.
Tomi got her khaki and boots after she completed her registration. The horn was blown again for all corp members to assemble on the parade ground for the opening of the camp. They were dressed in their 7 over 7—cap, shirt, jacket, trousers, belt, socks, and boots. They stretched out in rows and columns like kindergarten children at a school assembly.
Tomi couldn’t put a finger on how a week had flown past like a hawk on a mission. She seemed to be enjoying it more than she expected. Even what she dreaded the most—having her period—seemed to pale in comparison to the bustle of activities that stole her attention. The only thing she’d not come to terms with were the lectures delivered before lunchtime. Half of the corpers slept through it. There was a time one of the guys a few seats away from her covered his face with his cap. When the camp commandant yelled who’s that person snoring like a goat, his friend tapped him and he almost jumped out of his seat, eliciting a chorus of laughter.
One afternoon, she’d joined her platoon members for the man-o-war drills. There was a tug of war between platoon 5 and platoon 7. Her platoon, platoon 7 put the two heaviest people amongst them as the leaders while the others stayed behind according to their size. Tomi fell somewhere in between. The other platoon had no big people amongst them, so it was obvious who won. An unfair advantage, you may call it. As they jogged from one end of the camp to the other, people fainted. That day, it could be said that hell hath no fury like an angry blazing sun. Most of them had no water bottles with them, which contributed to the number of people the ambulance had to admit.
Tomi was out of breath panting like a woman in labour by the time they got to the other end.
Who go tire? A baritone voice called out. It was one of the soldiers.
Na you go tire. The already tired corpers shouted back at the commandant.
Corpers wee! Wa!
Wee! Wa!
After the back and forth between the corpers and the soldiers, they arranged themselves for the main show. They were grouped into 4. Some of them were to walk on a thick rope, from one end to another far away end. Tomi and her group were to crawl underneath a tire, and through a low bar with barbed wires. As she began her death crawl underneath the barbed wires, a strand of her braids got caught between the wires. She was still smiling and sweating when she felt a forceful tug and a sudden pull in her hair. She let out a loud screech that brought some of the activities to a halt. Other corpers and the soldiers in charge helped her out. She sat under a cashew tree, not knowing whether to cry or laugh. She watched the others scaling fences and swinging on ropes like monkeys jumping from one branch to another.
By the end of the 21 days in the camp, Tomi felt nostalgic. Between the early morning clarion call, the boring lectures, the SAED training and the camp shenanigans, she wished it wouldn’t come to an end.
On the foggy morning of the passing out ceremony, the corpers arranged themselves according to their platoons. It was time to show forth their days of parade practice under the bitter sun and the unforgiving rain to the state leaders and coordinators.
As Tomi raised and stamped her legs with gusto, swinging her arms in alignment with the sound of the drum and the bagel, she wished she could do this again, not the lectures part, but the parades, drill and social nights. What she thought was misery turned out to be fun. Her legs and arms burned by the end of the march.
She collected her posting letter from the State coordinator. Her heart rose and fell as she brought out the letter from the envelope that concealed it. She badly wished her primary place of assignment won’t be a secondary school. She had not studied accounting for four years to teach a bunch of interested students. When she opened the letter, she was to report to Lagos. Her ‘plug’ had reworked her posting to Lagos.
Her heart sank.
Oluwakemi