SERVING(NYSC) AT KOGI STATE— AN EXPERIENCE I WILL NOT FORGET IN A HURRY.

Serving at Kogi State— an Experience I will not Forget in a Hurry

 

I wonder what went on in your mind the day you got your letter to your place of primary assignment. For me, I was very excited to have that letter. Finally I would be getting out of camp, I sure couldn't be happier. Serving in Kogi State was enormously tough in all the literalness of the word. But I didn't know it would be at the time I had the letter still in my hand, waving at Kabba and inbound for Koto karfe, in Lokoja district. Boy how happy I was. From the sound of the name, I felt it would be a great place and possibly might be in the metropolitan Lokoja.

 Our bus sped off, but before it did, I couldn't help but notice people who were welled up in tears as they saw names like Ogolimagongo, Igalamela, Ofu, Otukpa and many more jaw- breaking names. We sat in the bus for a journey within Kogi state and surprisingly we spent 3 hours on the road just the hour I would spend from Enugu to Abia State.

 When we got to the metropolis, we were happy we got there, but the bus didn't stop. It continued on its journey toward Abuja. We finally left civilised and developed area, and finally landed on the expressway with bare land and withered grass and malnourished shrubs. Then the driver began ' "Koto is a nice place. Plenty food, lots of fish and nice indigenes,"

 Right now, my fellow corp members seemed to be very apprehensive. We wondered where the driver was taking us to. After we passed the Murtala Muhammed bridge, we saw Edeha town. Some women were selling massive dried catfish at the checkpoint. I began seeing houses of the 19th century, no antique or vintage. Everything seemed to have falling out from the usual Nigerian epic movies like “the missing mask".

 As the car pulled to a halt, we came down. Tall hills, mud buildings, rickety golf cars, and an intense sun which shone blatantly on making everywhere fiery. The land was baked and cracked; the air was dry and dusty. It was a quintessential Sahel Savannah, reborn in the Guinea Savannah— all thanks to global warming for the climate change.

 Looking at the place, one could easily mistake there to be Zimbabwean forest, where all wild lives cohabit, except for Koton karfe the suspected wild lives lived in camaraderie of friends with humans. Well it was a lethal dose of friendship because later on some slithering, poisonous brothers came to visit me and I squashed them.

 

After the inspector welcomed us, we had meagre lunch from the Corp members of the previous batch. Finally it was dusk, and the sun set soldiers as I had called them in my poem, came out fully armed to say welcome in their own special way. They were armed to the teeth and were massively huge, bigger in size than the city mosquitoes in coal city. Their proboscis gave an unforgettable bite of menace. It was a night filled with scourge of mosquitoes plaguing on our unattended bodies which hadn't witnessed any bite during the 3 weeks in camp. Well they were prepared to leave an indelible mark in our memories creating souvenirs in our minds.

The weather wasn't helpful at all. The temperature went from 40 to 45% Celsius, and the weather became scorching hot. I stayed on my flat and deflated foam, couldn't contain the two inconveniencing factors. And the third one was the foam giving me cramps and pains all over. Boy! Sweats rained down my body even as I went outside, we glittered in the moon at that ungodly hour of the night. We stayed out and couldn't sleep a wink that night because we fought mosquitoes in near- nakedness not even the ladies cared, they were all uncomfortable and looking for respite too.

 The next morning, when we got to the secretariat to append our signatures on the payroll, some sleepy heads had begun to slumber in the reception. It was then, and only then that some of us had wished we had bought some diseases before coming to camp. And since we didn't join the band wagon of people that bought some diseases for themselves, we joined the wheel Barrow that wheeled us into a perfect site for natgeowild to film another scene on ' the return of the wild'. But finally I thank God I didn't buy a disease for myself to escape the terrible town.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just preserving my memory

Oh, I forgot my usual toast....lol
so people, especially the undergraduates and newly graduated people, may your one year of service not turn to one year of unattained purpose( not that I am saying I did not attain something meaningful)....lol

Cheers People!