My journey to NYSC camp, Taraba

Waiting for my call up letter, I was expecting to see Akwa Ibom” because I worked towards that but I felt bad when I saw ‘Adamawa’ to camp in Taraba stream 2! of all states NYSC why why why???
I felt bad for the rest of the day, I had to do something, I can't  just goan serve in Adamawa, nah, it wont happen, I had to do something, but what do I do? I’m not married and I’m not sick. Then I remembered that corpers posted to the North East of Nigeria can redeploy based on insecurity…boom!!! I was happy, but then I didn’t want to take chances, I needed a plan B incase NYSC change their mind on that (lol, I no wan hear story). 

I told my parents, updated my facebook and BBM that I would soon be going to the North for service, trust people that care na ‘Gift abeg find way redeploy jor, which kind play NYSC wan use person pikin play’?. Dad didn’t know what to do, he didn’t know anybody to help out, all he could do was tell me not to worry that nothing will happen to me, I felt relieved, dad’s positive spirit brightened my mood. Mom didn’t know much about these things, she was just worried. My sisters called some people they knew who work with NYSC but they just adviced I go first, then redeploy based on insecurity. Some of my friends too didn’t get lucky with their posting, so I wasn’t alone (lol).

I accepted my fate, I will be going to the North for my camp but I needed a back up plan, I did a fake medical report (almost everyone did), nobody wan take chances. I started preparing my mind, I went to different social media sites to check out for fellow prospective corpers going to Taraba state from Port Harcourt so I won’t travel alone. Luckily for me they were much, I was happy I would be travelling with fellow otondos, my journey would be fun I thought to myself. We kept up with each other and even planned on booking a bus together, we never knew there were lots of other people in PH going to the same Taraba.

The D day finally came, we left a day to camp so we can register early. We went to the park, we saw lots of Otondos too who were travelling to different parts of the North in the same park. We bought our tickets and started boarding. Our bus was filled with prospective corpers going to the same camp with us, but we had three strange hausa guys with us. We were scared as they were boarding, we had to tell the driver to search them (You know na, Boko Haram things), there looks were scary. After searching them, we took off by exactly 8:00, we prayed on the way, then we started gisting about how we worked our posting and it didn't work, how we are scared of serving in the North and bla bla bla.

Our driver was very fast (James Bond Oshey!!!), he also made the journey fun by cracking us up too. We stopped to buy fuel from time to time, we stopped to eat too and also ease ourselves. We slept as time went on, woke up, gist, sleep and so on. We reached Benue State, Oboy the state no wan end o! We kept seeing round, small and short mud houses everywhere in Benue and it was tiring. Finally we got to Taraba, we were all relieved and happy, at least we are close (so we thought) we never knew (say Benue dey learn work) compared to Taraba. Taraba wasn't coming to an end and we were going to the capital, Jalingo. When we finally reached Jalingo, we started asking where the camp is because we were told they changed the camp venue to the new permanent site close to the Jalingo airport. There were military men on every check Point (there security in Taraba was strong). Once we told them we were going to camp, they'd joke with us and threaten us too that they'd deal with us in camp (we start to fear).

It was like almost 10pm when another set of military men stopped us, we thought it will be same, but no. We were already scared that we haven't reached the camp yet by that time, anything could happen and besides no one knew the exact location of the camp, we were just travelling based on directions. They used there torch to look at everybody in the bus, we told them we were all corpers, then they saw the scary looking Hausa boys sitting at the back of the boys, they were told to all come down and explain themselves and where they were travelling to (choi!! these people wan delay us) we were all vexing at that point. They came down and the soldiers started questioning them with the driver. They wasted like 20 minutes of our time before they allowed us to go, then the driver later told us that the guys were going to Chad, that they are Fulani Herdsmen, so they settled the soldiers with 6k for the 3 of them to go without detaining them.

After plenty talk about the soldiers and the Fulani boys we saw our destination 'NYSC Permanent Orientation Camp Sibre, Jalingo (finally) we were all happy. We got down from the bus with our luggage and went straight to the gate for searching before we were allowed to enter the camp. We entered the camp and everywhere was rowdy already by past 10pm (almost 11pm). We immediately went to get mattresses for the night first, bought bucket for bathing in mammy (expensive second hand shit!).

The guys we travelled with then parted from us to their own hostel. As we were going to our various hostels, rain started, we ran with our bags and mattrases to look for a place to sleep for the night. When we found a place, we looked around for water to bath but couldn't find, we couldn't go out to look for water because of the rain, so we just fetched water from the rain to bath. Sleep didn't come early because the room we were had no lock and we wondered how we will sleep comfortably in such an open place with our bags and everything plus we didn't know anyone there. But we later noticed that soldiers were deployed to secure the place already. We had a little chit chat in the room before we slept.


Fast forward to the next day, the struggle for registration was real!!!

Let me stop here for now, I will give you more stories about my registration and stay in camp as time goes on. I wish you all a safe trip to where ever you are travelling to.


***Thanks for reading and please share my story with your fellow prospective Otondo or even serving corpers. I hope you enjoyed it though?