#MyNYSC Forty Cents of Madness

A Few Insane Paragraphs and Show-off (Special Gist)

“The following people should come out…!” The deep voice spoke authoritatively.

On that fateful morning, we were seated for the SAED lecture at the Gateway International Stadium when the Information officer’s voice echoed out of the speaker calling on me and 36 others. Everyone around me may have wondered if I had violated the camp rules.

As we came out, we discovered that we were all roommates.

We had been told that we were being invited by the state coordinator for an award of recognition. While that was quite unbelievable as we all knew we didn’t do anything remarkable, we maintained confidence that we weren’t in trouble either.

We were paraded out of the crowd to the hostel. And in a few minutes, what seemed like an award of commendation quickly became a case of suspicion of violence and theft. We were asked to queue up and march into the dormitory for our luggages to be checked.

You see, our room was the happening room.

I mean, it was a loud room. Talk of the music, the never-ending arguments into the night which were sometimes enlightening and other times, disturbing. But nothing prepared us for such accusations and rumours.

With its disgraceful wings, birds of rumours flew around, dropping feces of untrue illegal activities going on in the room. Think of drugs — narcotics and psychotropic substances — and people were beginning to form opinions.

Though it was quite shitty and left unpacked. We were vindicated and the official truth was that we were being protected from external threats and violence (to avoid unnecessary details).

We later found out that a mentally unstable roommate had been having nightmares and was being illusional — of course, we didn’t know that for sure. He had reported us to the authorities and to this day, we don’t know the exact details of the story. There are different stories.

One night of madness that you should know. And it’s another story.

Before you read: Why are Nigerian students insecure about schools where they had their tertiary education? Why do they easily get mad over silly comments from other people?

The NYSC Mr Macho, a product of University of Ibadan made a controversial statement that negatively incited corp members who didn’t finish from a University.

He had said “awon omo polytechnic naa lo ma n pariwo bayi”. Actually, this is paraphrased. But he insinuated that people from polytechnics and other institutions are loud-mouthed. This triggered many of the boys who I believe were drunk and just felt the unnecessary need to cause a drama.

Before it got to that, this is the backstory.

A quick digression: I almost didn’t publish this as I was losing interest in writing it. Then when I realized I lost my audience, judging by the performance of the last post. I stopped!

My Editor and a few others however reached out asking me to publish the concluding parts. Well, here it is. But if you’ve not read Moments of Nostalgia, Truth and the Littlest Things, do that now. Abeg🤲🏻

I’m back!

About two nights to the end of the NYSC camp orientation, there was so much noises across the four rooms on the block, with blaring music escaping the walls into the air and loud disharmonious voices singing along. It was such a disturbing, yet fascinating chaos.

David, one of my roommates, had taken his phone to record grown men dancing in wild glee and screaming on top of their voices the lyrics of the songs. But his phone was snatched by another guy from a different room who didn’t want to record it in case it meant trouble.

Mr Macho, who was also my roommate, seemed visibly irritated that they were disturbing public peace past light out and charged on to the guy to return David’s phone. He maintained that he had no right to snatch the phone like that.

It was just a matter of time, I mean minutes. The words exchange escalated quickly and Mr Macho insinuated that people from polytechnics and other institutions are loud-mouthed. He became the centre of attention with every guy abusing him while he took on everyone who dared him.

Nope, he didn’t fight. He had told them they could do anything but touch him. Well, no one touched him. But the arguments heated on for long. While I understand that it may have been an insult but don’t we all shade other schools?

PS: This is a limited gist. I couldn’t get all the details correct besides I dont know what will get me into trouble. Biko! But this pretty much sums everything I know.

To close out on these bonus cents, take these words I have written on marble till I publish

My Final Thoughts In A Structured Essay

When you’re the shit, you are made for the toilet. You are made to be flushed, not kept. There’s a soak away for you.