₦airaland Forum

homesteady:
I guess platoon 3 came first

Please can you go back to your former format of posting? Posting lines from different paragraphs is quite confusing. Just start the story here and we can complete reading on the other site.

Hi, thank you for the feedback. I'll do that.

Politics in Nigeria is so dramatic so we decided to pick out from the pool of mayhem and shenanigans that happened throughout the decade to bring y’all the award winning performance of the nation’s politicking sagas.

Trust me, it was pretty hard trying to figure out which of the many dramas that occurred throughout the 2010s should make this list, but here are some of the more interesting ones:

1) Dino Melaye On The Dimeji Bankole Impeachment Saga (2010):
Although we are not giving any prizes, Dino Melaye is our favorite and most entertaining politician of the decade; he’s been a trouble maker and a trendsetter in politics for as long as he’s been a politician.

Going as far back as when Dimeji Bankole was the Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2010, Dino was one of the reps that caused quite a raucous at the house when a motion was raised to impeach Bankole, who was seated calmly, watching chaos unfold right in front of him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1x8e_47hWI

2) Pandemonium In Rivers State Assembly (2013):
Rivers state has always been a hot region but the intensity of the heat was brought to the attention of Nigerians when a free-for-all pandemonium ensued in the state’s senate that left a man’s head and jaw broken and the place in an uproar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM9P9nxNMA8

3) Senators Showing Off Their Climbing Skills (2014):
Somehow, senators made the police force stationed in the 7th National Assembly so mad, they got locked out of the Senate house and had to climb a gate to get through; after hours of agitated discussions, persuasions and pleading.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SRsvk5vbkA

4) GEJ & iPhone 5 Legbegbe (2014):
Former president, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, threw a lavish wedding ceremony for his daughter but many Nigerians couldn’t get over the fact that the alleged iPhone 5 souvenirs were quite extravagant, especially given the fact that Nigeria was still reeling from the shock of Chibok girls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram.
https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/customised-phone-dailypost.jpeg

5) Oluremi Tinubu vs Dino Melaye (2016):
Dino is everything nobody really likes even though he makes up for it with his singing and theatrics. He proved himself to be a misogynist when he told Senator Remi Tinubu that he would “beat up and impregnate her on the Senate floor and nothing would be done about it”.

This was as a result of a series of clashes and altercations between them, mostly because of his (and Bukola Saraki’s) defection to PDP from APC at the time. Watch Dino trying to defend himself for something so inexcusable:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaf3sxgvn6c

Or that time Senator Abbo assaulted a woman in a sex shop!

Source: https://www.zikoko.com/citizen/10-biggest-political-scandals-of-the-2010s/

The 2019 version of an anti-social media bill has been read for the second time on the floor of the Nigerian Senate, paving the way for its passage into law.

Titled Protection from Internet Falsehood and Manipulation Bill 2019 (SB 132), it brings a government hammer into conversations hosted on social media platforms. Twitter and Facebook have become fertile ground for public discourse between Nigerians of different stripes over the last decade. Considerable success has been achieved by using these media to propel mass action on political and socio-economic issues.

The government now wants to impose an edit button. Political, anti-government speech is expected to be under particular scrutiny. Penalties for breaking the social media law include a fine of up to N300,000 or three years imprisonment for individuals and N10 million for corporate organizations.

Citizens and digital rights activists are voicing fears of potential impacts on human rights and democratic expression.

“No forward-looking country is seeking to gag their citizens in the guise of fighting fake news,” says Adeboye Adegoke, program manager at Paradigm Initiative, a digital rights organisation, to TechCabal.

“Only totalitarian states are taking this approach.”

The naming of the bill is uncannily akin to military-era legislation used to suppress freedom of expression. That draconian law, Public Officers (Protection Against False Accusation) Decree No. 4 of 1984, was promulgated and enforced by current President Muhammadu Buhari when he was Head of State.

Boko Haram?
Muhammadu Sani Musa, a senator of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) who proposed the bill, bases his defence on the need to thwart the influence of foreign ideologies.

He argues his bill is a firewall against people with “deep-seated prejudices in different countries [who] are using internet falsehood to surreptitiously promote their causes, as we have seen in Nigeria with the insurgency of Boko haram.”

It is unclear that every “foreign ideology” or “deep-seated prejudice” invariably produces opinions capable of terrorizing people. Without specific definitions, Musa’s logic rightly induces scepticism as to the true intentions of the bill.

Fighting “cancerous” fake news
Another prominent defender of the bill is Elisha Abbo, a senator under investigation for allegations of physical assault. Abbo, a member of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the main opposition party, supports the bill “holistically” because “if we cannot regulate the spread of falsehood, it will consume all of us.”

🇳🇬Senator Elisha Abbo wants to jail people cos he was caught in a sextoy shop with 2 ladies & he physically assaulted another woman in the shop (true). Just bcos we caught u buying buttplugs doesnt mean we shld go to jail. #HateSpeechBill #SocialMediaBillpic.twitter.com/NwhP3a5XMe

— Wale Gates (@walegates) November 21, 2019

In June, CCTV recordings of him supposedly slapping a young woman in an Abuja intimacy gadget store were widely shared on Twitter, proving the platform a useful medium for keeping lawmakers honest.

To be sure, online misinformation is a scourge requiring deliberate policy attention. Advanced image and audiovisual manipulation technologies can fall into the hands of malicious actors. For the uninitiated, deepfakes are hard to distinguish from originals.

But as Chimaroke Nnamani, a PDP Senator from the south-east said while rejecting the bill, there is a CyberCrimes Act that caters to issues of slander and libel orchestrated on the internet. Devising another law for the same purpose is a covert means of creating limits on citizen expression, he said.

Protection from falsehood? More like protecting self-interest
Unlike in the days before social media, public officials are at greater risk of getting exposed for malfeasance today. Think the state governor caught stashing dollars in his kaftan, or bullion vans driving into a godfather’s residence. The social media bill is how members of the political class – regardless of party – push for stronger shields against the public’s eye.

Adegoke says Senator Musa’s bill could be motivated by discomfort with being outed on social media as the supplier of INEC card readers for the March 2019 general elections. In any case, the bill appears a replication of Singapore’s Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act 2019 signed into law in June.

“Singapore is a very bad example to copy from, considering it ranks 151 out of 180 in the World Press Freedom Index,” Adegoke observes.

Who calls the shots?
Drafting a bill to gag social media is questionable enough. Setting up an arbitrary enforcement mechanism is a recipe for dysfunction.

Under the proposed law, law enforcement agencies will have regulatory powers over internet intermediaries. But intermediaries are already supervised by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) per the Nigerian Communications Act 2003. Musa’s bill goes above and beyond, empowering law enforcement “to give directives to the NCC itself,” Adegoke says.

Same enforcement agencies that “already have poor human rights records and are known to routinely abuse citizen’s rights.”

Supporters of this bill – and a similar one against Hate Speech – are determined to get what they want. Where the 8th Senate (2015 – 2019) failed, they hope to succeed.

That will require the bill scaling a third reading after review by the Senate’s judiciary committee and getting assent from President Buhari.

Source: https://techcabal.com/2019/11/21/the-dangerous-implications-of-nigerias-social-media-bill/

NYSC Diary Day 16: How To Sorta Lose The Inter-Platoon Competition

6:00 AM
NYSC camp ends in 5 days.

Today is the inter-platoon drills competition. I wake up feeling a little excited. Days and days of marching, and finally we get to showcase what we have learned. All the right wheel, left wheel, slow march, breaking into quick march. I can’t wait.

But first, I have to go to the parade ground for morning drills and meditation. The competition is by 3pm and so I have to get breakfast, go to the OBS to cast my own segment of the program, and attend SAED lectures and practicals. There’s a whole lot before the competition. But I am not afraid. I know my platoon will win.

Edges have been laid, hair styled and shaped. Even our sub-guard commandant has shaved. If we don't give them, how will they take it?

At the end of the competition, we came in 8th.

https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/IMG-20191121-WA0009.jpg

Read the rest of the entry: https://www.zikoko.com/life/nysc-diary-day-16-how-to-sorta-lose-the-inter-platoon-competition/

NYSC Diary Day 15: Only Six Days Left In Hell

10:00 AM
I have made a new discovery. The cooks in the kitchen don’t put salt in our food. How could I have gone on for so long without noticing that I find out that they use a lot of Maggi seasoning, Onga, curry and thyme, but never salt. Even rice, they don’t add salt. They only wash it with salt but that’s about it.

I am surprised when people say this. Really surprised. I know of people who eat salt but refrain from seasoning cubes. Is there a reverse of this in Katsina?

For me, it makes sense now that the food (rice especially) tastes like it needs a little more salt. But really, no salt? Wawu. Does this mean that seasoning and spices can take the place of salt in a meal?

https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/IMG-20191120-WA0008.jpg

Read the rest of the entry: https://www.zikoko.com/life/nysc-diary-day-15-only-six-days-left-in-hell/

We’ve been on the road for almost 80 days, stress levels are high, meaning everyone is a little more irritable, meaning the tendency to want to smack someone is higher.

We've made a list of a few things that have gone wrong on the trip so far. Things upsetting enough to change the trip status to "Enroute Nigeria".

From falling ill to Toke's incident and most recently, Tosin being physically assaulted by the security at a government office in Dakar.

Read yesterday's journal: https://jollofroad.zikoko.com/these-are-the-times-this-whole-thing-almost-went-south/

NYSC Diary Day 14: A Crash Course On How To Make Doughnuts In Camp


6:30 AM
The countdown begins; NYSC camp will soon become a thing of the past. But before this happens, the soldiers are bent on showing us who is superior. It’s another day, another round of drills and marching and wondering what exactly all this will amount to. I go through the activities of bathing, brushing, and dressing up a little confused about what I am doing. Let’s be honest, do we understand what we as doing in this Nigeria?

8:30 AM
I am on air again. I host the current affairs and today in history segment. Today, I bring a twist to the show — interesting facts about the human body. Did you know, for example, that when you kiss someone you pass on 278 bacteria to them? Relax, you Farm Equipment. 95% of these bacterias are harmless. You’re probably thinking, “Only 5% are harmful, no wahala,” but think of mouth odour. What if it is caused by the remaining 5%? You better stop kissing entirely. Something that is not even sweet.

Breakfast is pap and beans, as per recycle of meals. I add milo and peak milk to the pap, and mehn, issa cruise.

1:15 PM
Chopist class. And I am here to enjoy it to the fullest. ENJOYMENT GALORE. We are learning how to make doughnuts. The instructor tells us about the punctured doughnuts, the non-puncture(d) ones (that is, doughnut wey no get hole for centre), jam doughnuts, glazed doughnuts, etc. Then we set about mixing our dough and leaving it to rise, kneading it, rolling it and then cutting it into pretty circles of dough. We place them on a tray and set it out in the sun so it can rise again.

https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/IMG-20191119-WA0001.jpg

In the meantime, we learn how to make a pancake and I am given a bit of it to taste, but someone smacks it out of my hand to the floor after I take one bite. Shebi you see that bad belle full everywhere.

Anyway, we fry the doughnuts and they come out brown and fluffy, with some of them having a slight crisp that makes it even more enjoyable. And it’s hot too. Imagine this kind of delicacy going with a bottle of cold Fanta.

https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/IMG-20191119-WA0007_2.jpg

I swear, after this SAED training, na to go open shop remain. We’re going to do gizdodo tomorrow. I don’t know what that is, but I’m guessing a combination of gizzard and dodo.

Read the rest of the entry: https://www.zikoko.com/life/nysc-diary-day-14-a-crash-course-on-how-to-make-doughnuts-in-camp/

This is a Lion Walk at Fathala Reserve in Senegal. There are 6 lions in total but we are confident that there will be an addition to the pride in a few months (see the photo to know what we mean ).

These lions were raised in captivity which seems sad until the guide told us that lions raised in captivity live longer than those in the wild. They aren’t maltreated at all and are fed every four days with dead animals which is why they weren’t tempted to snack on any of us.

The sticks you see us holding are supposedly a sign of authority. When the lions see them they know know not to harm you, but we think we would have been fine without them. Nobody dropped their sticks sha.

Would you sign up for this experience?

https://www.zikoko.com/jollof-road/heres-what-its-like-to-walk-with-lions/

I recently went house-hunting in Lagos. Thinking it would be easier than outsourcing the task to an estate agent, I checked a real estate website to find a house. After finding an apartment within my budget, I called the agent who’d posted the house online. He informed me that the house was available and asked for a N3,000 “registration fee” for a meetup.

Straightforward, right? Little did I know what awaited me.

“This is not the house you posted online,” I told the agent after he took me to an old bungalow in a location different from what he posted online.

“Ah, that house is no longer available,” he said. “I also have ‘three ‘clean ones’ that are still on ground.”

Frustrated, I left without seeing anything close to what was posted online.

Then I realised: finding a house in Lagos is no easy business.

Before the digital era, finding a house required a lot of work and walk. You had to go around town checking every “to-let” sign you could find and pray not to fall into the hands of fraudsters. Or you would just outsource the whole operation to a real estate agent who would handle all of that for you at a steep price. These factors made it difficult for people to find their dream house in Lagos.

However, with the growth of the internet in Nigeria, services like Jiji, OLX (which was later acquired by Jiji), PropertyPro and other platforms emerged. These are free platforms that allow people to post classifieds, including real estate, online. PropertyPro promised a “stressless approach to getting your dream home.”

My experience on these platforms was far from this promise.

Finding a house in Lagos remains as gruelling as ever and digital platforms aren’t doing enough to help. Lax on control measures, it is too easy for agents to force people back to the offline reality of house hunting.

Found a house online? Is it really available?

One way agents misuse online platforms is fake listings.

On platforms like PropertyPro and Jiji, one typically finds duplicate posts for the same house, sometimes from the same user. In real life, agents often take multiple clients to the same house and favouring the first to pay.

However, the difference between this offline reality and what you would find in the digital world is that most times such duplicate adverts are fake. The advertised property, many times, was never on the market or would have been rented many months before the advert was created.

“[The] first agent I got off a platform didn’t confirm if the house was still available,” said Ada, who used an online platform to search for a house.

“I got to the address with the agent and we were told that all apartments had been taken.”

“I paid for [both our] transport fares to and from the address, and I didn’t get to see the apartment,” she told me.

This is a situation that many house hunters encounter often.

But why do agents do it?

Typically, agents use the picture of good looking houses to attract prospective tenants to their listings. But in reality, many of these agents want to find tenants for houses that are either located in “unsavoury” places or are in pretty bad shape.

Others want to find clients for houses that are really just uncompleted buildings; they want clients to pay so the houses can be completed. They can’t draw clients in if they post the actual pictures of the property.

However, there is another reason why agents post fake adverts.

Source: https://techcabal.com/2019/11/14/the-unfulfilled-promise-of-digital-real-estate-services-in-lagos/

This is Zikoko’s Game of Votes Weekly Dispatch. We share the most important things that happen in Nigeria every week. 5pm Thursdays. Stay woke.

Did you say freedom of speech? SHH, the Nigerian government might have no idea what that means and might not want to hear what you have to say about it. How do I know? Well, the Senate has proposed a bill to kill anybody who speaks hatefully. Damn son, I’ve got bars. But seriously.

https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/unnamed-2.png

What time is it?
Time to check yourself before you say ANYTHING that will be frowned upon because it’s still not clear what hate speech means under the bill; don’t like the border closure? SHH. Curious about the salaries of your senators? SHH. Our government doesn’t like noise; it grinds their gears and they’ll be grinding yours if you are convicted of a hate speech crime.

Whose brilliant idea was this anyway?
https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/unnamed-3.png

Deputy Senate Whip, Sabi Abdullahi, representing Niger North Senatorial district. Apparently, he woke up to this bright idea one morning in 2018 when he was in the 8th assembly, and thought it would be awesome to introduce the bill to the floor because he was uncomfortable with how freely Nigerians in a democratic society spoke. Although it didn’t get the immediate results he wanted, the bill recently reared its ugly head again, had its first reading and many Nigerians are not liking this new development at all.

GUESS WHO GOT SACKED.

I’m someone, I’m the chairman of a local party but my members just suspended me. Who am I? Let me give you a clue. My wife’s name is Eve and I’m the first man. Alright, you can stop guessing, it was none other than Adams Oshiomole. News reaching us is that the Edo state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has suspended him.

Now Why Would They Do Something Like That?
Oshiomole was suspended for his alleged role in the crisis rocking the state chapter of the party. This comes as APC governors give him an ultimatum to resign — As chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), he has been asked to convene a National Executive Council (NEC) meeting to address the party’s challenges or resign from his position.

Trouble in Oshiomhole Paradise or Trouble in APC paradise?
Both. Members of the APC have allegedly been protesting against the following: Poor reward system in the party; Abandonment of founding fathers; Neglect of the entire party structure; Failure to convene a quarterly meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC) – the decision making organ of the party amongst other things.

Particularly in Edo State, the battle between Obaseki and Oshiomole may have escalated to a fist fight. Ahead of the 2020 governorship election in the state, it is alleged that Oshiomole was shopping to replace Obaseki who is the current governor.

As if that was not enough, the Edo chapter of the APC also suspended this same Governor Obaseki for allegedly perfecting plans to defect to the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) ahead of next year’s election.

https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/unnamed-4.png

Source: https://www.zikoko.com/general/fellow-nigerians-be-careful-what-you-say/

NYSC Diary Day 12: As Camp Winds Down, We Get Close To Gbas-Gbos Territory

6:30 AM
Today is the day that my luck will shine, but I don’t know it yet. I go through the daily rituals (wahala, actually) of waking up in NYSC camp and head to the parade ground and after everything ends. Shebi you know that we do morning and evening parade? Well, this morning is when we will test what we have learnt. This means that all platoons will march like we are doing the march past on Wednesday, which is the day of the parade proper.

We get in line. Everyone is tense, because the camp commandant is present and every platoon wants to outshine themselves. Me I am just worried about doing the right thing.

Anyway, we march. Round and round the parade ground until our jungle boots are coated in dust and we look like something from the Dust Age (is there something like Dust Age sef?) My legs and yansh hurt, all that clenching of butt to stand at attention and locking your knees so your legs can swing as stiff as a log of wood.

Breakfast is pap and akara, and I am halfway into it before I realise that they’re repeating food in this camp. I don’t blame them, because to be fair, how many kinds of food do we have in this part of the country? How many, eh?

https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/IMG-20191118-WA0004.jpg

11:08 AM
Shebi you know I said that luck shined on me? Now is the time. On Thursday, the day that SAED people did Digital Skill Acquisition and I got a knapsack, they gave a topic and said that there will be a debate. The topic is The Role of National Youth Policy in the Development of a Nation. Maybe not in that exact order sha, but that’s the general idea. So they said that all platoons will debate on it and winners will be selected. My platoon people nominated me for the debate, but I just didn’t put it in mind. Actually, none of us did. Too much camp stress and you expect us to have debate in mind? Make debate dey debate himself, abeg.

But these people came today again, and fiam, they said “Oya o, debate people come out, it is time.”

For a minute, I was this confused crab from Sponge Bob, because where will I start from?

https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/confused-crab.jpg

I Googled stuff, did what I could, and then went up to talk rubbish, very sure that I was even blowing grammar bombs. So imagine my surprise when my platoon was announced as the third position. Like!

Funny enough, we tied with Platoon 10 which my friend F. represented. Na so we dey o, two friends, bunk mates and former course mates winning in Katsina. Cash prize for third position was N2,000. Me I did good boy and went to hand it over to platoon leader. In the end, it came back to me, but not until I did Father Christmas of 50% (do the maths) for platoon people.

Here’s a picture of the envelope, so it won’t look like I didn’t give you something.

Read the rest of the entry: https://www.zikoko.com/life/nysc-diary-day-12-as-camp-winds-down-we-are-nearing-gbas-gbos-territory/

NYSC Diary Day 11: How Much Pepper Can Camp Show You?

6:00 AM
The longer I spend here, the more I want to go back home. So far, it is fun mixed with hard work set to make us better citizens. But to be honest, is this training having any effect on people yet? Take Bros for instance. You know he was meant to he decamped yesterday? Well, I heard he was pardoned and told to write an undertaking. I don’t know what is in that undertaking, but I am sure that it must be something on being properly behaved till camp ends.

Now you can imagine my wonder during morning mediation when I see Bros in all his peerless generosity dispensing abortion tips to the ladies. Like, from where to where, Bros? You no suppose dey mellow? But Bros is in his element, talking about how hot peppers can help a pregnancy disappear.

Today’s morning mediation is commitment. Perhaps it is safe to say that Bros is only being committed to his ways.

8:14 AM
Off air. I have just read the news, and if I’m to describe how I feel, I would say I feel a mix of elation and disappointment. Here’s why: I was slated to read the news in pidgin and I had been excited about this. Only to hear that morning news cannot be in pidgin but in English, and that pidgin might be considered later, but English is paramount. So even though I am excited to finally read the news and not just do a newspaper review, I am still a bit flattened about this refusal to allow me speak pidgin.

Breakfast is bread, tea and boiled egg. I relax at the OBS studio. Soon, the bugle sounds. It is time for SAED.

12:03 PM
Here’s one thing you should know about Fridays in NYSC camp: if you’re a Christian or a Muslim who for some reason best known to you decides not go to Jumat or a traditionalist, Friday is one of the days where you get almost four hours of idle time. Once SAED practicals end by 12PM, you’ll be let off. Muslims prepare for Jumat around this time and don’t return until lunch which is by 2PM. 2PM is about ths time we have lunch, and on their return, lunch is probably being served or about to be. You take lunch, siesta, and when it is almost 4PM, the bugle is blown for evening parade which will most likely begin by 4PM. So, free time!!

https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/IMG-20191116-WA0009_2.jpg

At SAED practicals, we learn how to make fruit salad and vegetable salad. Thanks to the sudden twist of the universe, I become the trainer’s unofficial PA and amplifier who echoes whatever she says to the class. What this means is that I get to stand beside her, help throw things away, take pictures with her phone. You know, those kinds of thing that make people call you a teacher’s pikin. Me, I kuku want to eat extra salad because I did not pay for practicals. I left class earlier yesterday and I didn’t know that they contributed for today’s practicals.

In the end, I ate extra salad as I planned. My labour did not go in vain.

Read the rest of the entry: https://www.zikoko.com/life/nysc-diary-day-11-this-camp-don-show-me-pepper/

Sex Life is an anonymous zikoko.com weekly series that explores the pleasures, frustrations and excitement of sex in the lives of Nigerians.

Today’s subject is a 25-year-old who was diagnosed with depression in 2016 and has been off and on antidepressants since then. He shares his experience with them and how they have impacted his sex life.

When did you have sex for the first time?
January 2018, only a few months after I turned 25. My ex and I had just broken up. It was a low period, and I was looking for some type of connection. So I hung out with a friend who was engaged — I didn’t know this at the time though. One thing led to another and she had offed cloth. Under two seconds, everything bust — we went from being friends and nothing more to friends having sex. Because it was my first time, I kept wondering if I was doing it right and if she was enjoying it. Soon, we were both twitching. She tightened up on me and we came.

As great as the sex was, I felt terrible after.

This just went from juicy to confusing. Please explain.
I had tried to have sex with the person I loved, my ex who I had just broken up with, but it never worked — my body just wasn’t responding to hers. Then I had sex with this friend and it was great. It felt like I had betrayed my ex.

See the full gist: https://www.zikoko.com/life/sex-on-antidepressants-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/

I Got Sexually Assaulted In Dakar

Today’s journal was supposed to be about many things. It was supposed to be about running into fellow travellers and creating new adventures with them. Wading in a pink lake and finding Fura de Nunu. Instead, it’s about how I got sexually assaulted by a taxi driver, his singular act eclipsing the rest of my day.

It was 9 pm and after a long day of traipsing around Dakar, I had shut down. The rest of the team, however, hadn’t. We were right by the Renaissance Monument and had just grabbed dinner. Someone suggested we go eat at the top and everyone was in consensus except me. I had gotten to the point of the day where my wig felt too tight and my makeup felt too heavy. We had spent most of the afternoon at Lac Rose and the itch I had developed on my legs after the saltwater had tried was starting to spread. The only activity I was interested in indulging in was a hot shower.

I decided to grab a cab to our Airbnb. Captain was insistent on dropping me off but I was more insistent on finding my way. It was just 20 minutes away and I was born and bred in a madhouse like Lagos. What could exist in a city like Dakar that I couldn’t handle? Which was the reason I let my guard down. I didn’t bother to note the plate number of the cab I was in or the make and model, and text it to the rest of the team. I just hopped into the first cab I saw communicating my destination with broken French, gestures and the Google Maps app.

The first 10 minutes of the ride was pleasant. The driver kept pointing things out on the road and telling me the word in French, then Wollof. I nodded along and repeated the words he taught me enthusiastically like I was a toddler who was just learning her alphabets. Then he pointed to himself and said the Wolof word for man pointed at me and said the Wolof word for girl. He did this repeatedly until I comprehended what he was trying to communicate. “Oui c’est bon” I said cheerfully when I finally understood. But he continued and pointed at himself again saying the Wolof word for man but when it was my turn instead of pointing at me again, he cupped my left breast in his palm and squeezed it as he said the Wolof word for woman. I froze.

It was hard for me to understand what had just happened at first. A part of my brain wanted to register it as a mistake — maybe he grazed my boob accidentally. But when I looked up at his wrinkled face, I saw a sly smile plastered on it. “Oui?” he said. I didn’t speak, I looked straight ahead, then at my map, my Airbnb was still 10 minutes away. My mind raced at a thousand thoughts per minute. I was alone in a moving vehicle in a foreign country where I didn’t speak the language with a foreign man who had just sexually assaulted me. The rest of my team only knew I was on my way back to the Airbnb, no one knew what he looked like. In fact, if I was asked to point him out in a line up right now, I couldn’t.

We were driving through near-empty side streets with no street lamps and I only had a vague sense of where I was. It was at that moment fear consumed me. There was no space for any other emotion. Not anger, or revulsion, they all took a backseat and I moved into fight or flight mode. The window beside me was rolled down. I could see the doors were locked but I didn’t want to alarm him by attempting to lift the lock. So I placed my arm on the window so that he didn’t suddenly roll it up.

I stayed perfectly still, using the map to direct him. I said a little thank you prayer every time he went in the direction I indicated instead of suddenly veering off track. Then I called a trusted friend and put the phone on speaker. I called a couple of times before it finally connected. By this time, I was five minutes away from my destination but it felt a lot longer. I told my friend that I had just been assaulted and I needed him to stay on the phone until I got to my Airbnb.

Read the rest of the journal: https://www.zikoko.com/jollof-road/i-got-sexually-assaulted-in-dakar/

NYSC Diary Day 10: How Do People Have Time For Cultism With Camp Stress?

6:30 AM
Technically, we are now edging towards the second half of NYSC camp. Today is the 10th day, and in 11 days, I will be back home. The routine is pretty much the same: early rising hours, soldiers banging at doors, the bugle blowing like an annoying thing that it is, morning meditation, parade, etc.

Something new happens this morning during meditation: four people are called out, and the camp director announces that the police will help them pack their bags to the gate.

Ghen ghen. Do you remember Bros? The one who caused trouble in the kitchen on the day our platoon had kitchen duties? He is one of those called out, and this is when everything goes skrrr. We are told to continue with our activities, but who can do that? We listen for our numbers on the roll call, but all the while, our eyes and ears are trained to the place where the people to be sent out of camp are being interrogated. Eventually, I learn that Bros fought with a camp official and when he was told to keep shut, he kept at it, asking, “Do you know who I am?!”

For minutes, we keep up our banner of pity and make excuses for Bros: Yes, he is lousy, but can they please be merciful? They should pardon them na, as per first time. In a way, I think that this is the reason why Nigeria is slow in attaining change. We hate an attitude, and when such an attitude receives its due, we make excuses for it.

All of us in this country should please pick one struggle, abeg.

7:50 AM
I am on air today again, and it is fun, as always. I join U. in presenting the Current Affairs and Today in History segment. At the end, K. and I get the tag which declares us OBS members. This is the tag that grants us access to get out of parade and other duties, except duties coordinated by devils in guise of soldiers. OBS does not mean you’re not going to do other things, we have been told. But then one can be disobedient once in a while, yeah?

When I get the tag, I tell K., “Let’s go and paint the town red.”

Breakfast is pap and beans, and like the first time, I achieve an orgasm as soon as I taste my beans. It might not be your taste, but one man’s vegetable salad is considered goat food by another man.

https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/IMG-20191115-WA0011.jpg

9:50 AM
SAED lectures again. We learn about digital marketing, which I find very interesting. Interesting enough that I do not sleep a wink, and I attempt to answer a question on browsers and search engines. At the end, I am given a knapsack which is something I have always wanted since.

10:01 AM
We begin our work of baking. Today, we’ll ice it. The instructor dishes out the procedures which I won’t share with you, because if you want to know, you sef come to NYSC, Borno camp. Yep, I went there.

https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/IMG-20191115-WA0006.jpg

Note this: anytime it comes to free food, people lose consciousness of their humanity. You should have seen some of these fine girls and boys shouting because of a slice of cake. Hard guy, hard guy but ordinary cake and home training goes on flight mode. Tueh.

Read the rest of the entry: https://www.zikoko.com/life/nysc-diary-day-10-how-do-people-have-time-for-cultism-with-camp-stress/

NYSC Diary Day 9: What Are The Chances I’ll Meet The LOML In Borno?

5:27 AM
Back to being a regular platoon person. Back to going to the parade ground which, to be honest, I am now starting to enjoy. I am supposed to be at OBS by 4 AM for broadcast, but a local man cannot can. I wake up by 4:19 AM and I realise that with this OBS thing, some battles have to be left for the Lord to fight, so I return to my bed until people begin to move about, waking me from my sleep.

Today’s meditation is handled by Platoon three. They speak on loyalty. Nigeria wakes up. Our platoon leader takes roll call. As soon as he calls my name, I sneak out of the parade ground.

It’s my 9th day on this camp. It is the first time I will be on air as a newscaster.

https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/oprah.gif

7:50 AM
News casting goes well. I was slated for headline review. K. and I reviewed headlines from Punch, The Guardian, The Sun, The Nation. When it’s over, the head of the news department hugs us. She is excited. I go on to grab breakfast.

Breakfast is yam and stew. The yam is like a pestle, something you can hurl at someone if you intend to kill them with one blow. Just throw it and boom, they’re dead and gone. Mine is soft, sha. But K.’s is hard, and even though we fry eggs to go along with it, she ends up throwing hers in the bin, half eaten.


9:03 AM
SAED lectures begin, my sleeping pill that never fails. But this lecture is interesting, and it is because we talk about money. Corps members’ allowance, incentives, etc. Now this is an interesting thing that people posted to Borno state should note:

There is the option for automatic redeployment when you are posted to Borno state. But if you choose not to redeploy, you get N10,000 as state allowance; you get posted to the capital, Maiduguri; and you get free accommodation. There’s more, I heard, but it looks like they are unveiling it slowly. Me, I think it’s a ploy to get us to stay back. The incentives are attractive, but I am thinking of the distance, the fact that I’ll probably see my family just once throughout the service year. And maybe all the opportunities I’ll be missing?

Anyway, there is the opportunity of thinking things through. And if I don’t like/want where I relocate to, all I have to do is not make any move within 21 days, and I’ll be relocated to Borno state. There’s still so much I need to learn about this, and I am certainly waiting. Who knows if I will meet the love of my life in Maiduguri, Borno? Who knows?

12:00 PM
We are deep into our SAED skill. I belong to food processing (catering, abeg leave big grammar and packaging) and we are learning how to bake cupcakes. And they’re a beauty, aren’t they? Love of my life, if you’re reading this, look at the skill I’m adding to my husband material CV.

https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/IMG-20191114-WA0009_2.jpg

Read the rest of the entry: https://www.zikoko.com/life/nysc-diary-day-9-what-are-the-chances-ill-meet-the-loml-in-borno/

NYSC Diary Day 8: What Do You Do During A Man O’ War Drill?

5:00 AM.
I wake up full of joy even though I am tired and would like to go back to bed. Today is Platoon two’s day to take the morning meditation. The topic is Patience, and I—yes me!—will be the one taking it. I wrote it too, then submitted it to the Platoon Leader and Assistant Platoon Leader to crosscheck it before I took it to the Camp PRO, a man so efficient he’s almost scary. They all liked it. Actually, scratch that. They all LOVED it. The Camp PRO said to add one more paragraph to wrap it up and then we move.

Today is also our Man O’ War drill, which means we have to dress in our khakis full. 7/7, as they say it.

6:30 AM
I’m so relieved, excited and energetic; I want to scream, jump, weep, and do anything. The Morning Meditation went well. It went so well, the Camp PRO said, “What a brilliant work by Platoon 2. I believe other platoons can see and take note.”

My platoon screams. This is the talk that will make me famous, such that when my name is mentioned, someone will respond with, “The one who read the Morning Meditation? Nice one. You killed it, you really did.”

Take that, other platoons, hahaha.

6:47 AM
“Who go tire? Na you go tire!”

“Corpers wee! Wa!”

Man O’ War drills begin in earnest. We jog from the parade ground to another side of the camp.

https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/IMG-20191113-WA0013.jpg

It is more fun than parade, but it is also backbreaking. We jump up a stilt and walk to the end using our hands alone. We crawl through a tunnel. We swing from a thick rope. We climb through another tunnel covered with barbed wire. At the end of each activity, photographers mob us: “Look here!” “Smile!”” Look up” “Yes corper look at me, look this way.” It’s like paparazzi mobbing a celebrity. I feel like a hero, like I have saved Nigeria from one huge disaster.

https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/IMG-20191113-WA0025.jpg
https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/IMG-20191113-WA0023.jpg

We end the drill with a lecture: do not steal money from Nigeria; don’t go abroad, you too can fix your country. Say God bless Nigeria every morning. Low key, I’m like “Alaye jor jor.”

https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/BITCH-PLEASE.gif

Read the rest of the entry: https://www.zikoko.com/life/nysc-diary-day-8-what-do-you-do-during-a-man-o-war-drill/

We're on our way to Senegal!

From tasting the Gambia jollof to playing with crocodiles, you can say that our stay in the Gambia was simply peaceful and intriguing, especially because of how incredibly small the country is, with 50% of its population being tourists and the other 50% being locals.

Read the journals chronicling our visit to the Gambia on https://jollofroad.com

Where should we visit in Senegal?

NYSC Diary Day 7: What Is SAED And Why Is It Pronounced ‘Saheed’?

5:03 AM
I leave for the parade ground without taking a shower. When I woke up a few minutes earlier, I felt tired. Really tired. I lay in bed and ignore everyone trying or not trying to wake me. It will be a good day, I thought. Just me, sleeping myself away. But then the soldiers barged in and my dreams were shattered. There was no time to take a shower. I simply brushed my teeth, washed my face and dashed out.

https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/IMG-20191112-WA0004.jpg

On the OBS (Orientation Broadcasting Service) group chat, there is a message asking us to be at the studio by 6:00 am. A delight, because it means I am exempted from parade. At the introductory session, the Camp PRO told us that if we join OBS in order to escape parade, we are wrong. But look at me now. I skip to the studio, happy that I will be skipping parade after all, Camp PRO’s words or not.

The studio is empty; I am the only one present and soon, the head of OBS, a fellow corps member comes in to tell me that it is a must I attend morning parade and that I can come back after it is over. “Oh really?” I say. I look happy on the inside as I go to the parade ground, but deep down inside me, I’m die.

Platoon 1 is in charge of Morning Meditation, but because they failed to submit their write up to the Camp PRO for edits, their presentation is dead on arrival. Tomorrow it will my Platoon’s turn, and suddenly everyone is turning, asking how far with it, and are we good to go?

7:27 AM
I’m at the OBS studio, being generally useless but still looking useful, since everything to be done has been taken over by these ladies who, apparently, are either true OAPs or studied Mass Communication. There is an argument about phonetising which basically is a warning to presenters not to use fake accents. Opinions fly about, but me I am hungry. When the bugle sounds for breakfast, I make my way there immediately.

https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/IMG-20191112-WA0005.jpg

Breakfast is pap and beans. It’s been 756,289 days since I ate beans, and tasting one spoon of it feels the way I imagine an orgasm must feel.

10:15 AM
Lmao beans and pap as breakfast is a scam. I WANT TO SLEEP! I wonder if there’s a sleeping medicine in the food, but I doubt it. Someone says that pap induces sleep, and there’s nothing to worry about. There are plenty WebMDs on this camp, sha.

https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/IMG-20191112-WA0012.jpg

Today begins our SAED meetings. SAED (Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development). This is one thing I dread, because every time ex corps members talk about it, they tell stories of how boring it is. I don’t know why they pronounce it as Saheed.

10:45 AM
The lecture is as predicted: boring, the crowd, rowdy. We are given a booklet on entrepreneurship, another booklet on accounts. A man referred to as the accountant tells us the importance of having your bank account before leaving the camp so your allowance can be sent into it. In between this lecture, I drift from sleep to wakefulness. My mind fills up with unnecessary trivia—will I ever find the love of my life? Two plus two will give you four, so in two, three years, some of these people will be married. how do people find love in camp sef?

https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/IMG-20191112-WA0006.jpg

I joke with the people seated next to me to keep awake. I pay no attention to the lecture, even though bits and pieces of it keep floating into my head: “We teach people craft. What business idea do you have? We can provide loans for you. Who is an entrepreneur here? is your business registered with an association?”

Read the rest of the entry: https://www.zikoko.com/life/nysc-diary-day-7-what-is-saed-and-why-is-it-pronounced-saheed/

On Saturday, October 19, Funmi* received an Instagram direct message from David Kenneth. He made a tantalizing proposal: invest N5,000 ($14) and get it tripled in 45 minutes. She was intrigued. Kenneth requested her phone number to provide detailed explanations of how the investment worked. It seemed harmless.

Two days and six more N5,000 transfers later, Funmi was understandably fuming when ‘Kenneth’ not only refused to pay her dividends but had hacked and taken control of her Instagram account. Her offence? Refusing to transfer more to facilitate the refund of her initial deposit. In 48 hours, she lost the equivalent of the new national minimum wage ($83); a dash to the bank spared her the disaster of losing savings to a faceless, rogue broker.

If you cannot relate to this story or feel Funmi was unduly naive, you could be right. But it has not been so long since thousands of Nigerians boarded the clearly questionable MMM rollercoaster. Many failed to arrive the financial independence utopias they were promised after months of expensive GH-ing and PH-ing.

With MMM dead, social media is awash with a new groove.

Like Funmi, Onyinyechi Okeke was followed on Instagram in November 2018 by a curiously-named account. “[He] said he worked with Flip cash which according to him, is a money doubling firm”. That should have been a red flag but “he also said their sole aim is to help youths that had productive thought for starting up a business but no capital. I guess those exact words enticed me”.

Sure enough, she would not be able to get through to the scammer on the phone once he received her N5,000 transfer.

‘Our name is legion’
By every credible standard, “Flip cash” is not a real company. Unlike Binomo – a financial assets online trading platform – there is no official website or verified Facebook page for any entity claiming ownership of the Flip cash brand.

But even Binomo has become entangled in the web of online money scams such that the legitimacy of the platform is increasingly doubtful.

On Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, hundreds if not thousands of accounts are named with a variant of “binomo investment” as a suffix. Timelines of such accounts are plastered with screenshots of supposed testimonies of multiplied deposits, ostensibly to persuade prospective preys of their legitimacy.

While they use male or female names – Mike, Faith, Mr Musa, Mrs Success – and use display pictures aimed at projecting wealth, they almost always make the same promise in the first few lines of their chat: to double or triple your money in less than an hour.

Legit or scam-ish
In September 2018, Binomo launched a Nigerian campaign featuring former national football team star Victor Moses as brand ambassador. At the time, they claimed to have been operating in Nigeria since the first quarter of the year; you probably got tired of their ads on YouTube at some point. ‘Binomo world’, a verified page on Facebook, is liked by over 36,000 accounts.

A bio on binomo.com says it was founded in 2014. Its address is in St Vincent and the Grenadines, an island country in the Carribean. You will find flattering testimonials from “Ayinde Abraham Lincoln” and “Adeyemi Iseoluwa Isaac” (tracking these persons for comment proved impossible). But a ‘binomo’ search across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter hardly turns up an account claiming to be trading assets on the platform.

https://techcabal.com/wp-content/uploads/tc/2019/11/Screenshot-432-690x332.png

Instead, an army of malicious actors fronting as company agents are on the prowl, promising near-instant returns to unsuspecting targets. On bad reviews posted to the Binomo Facebook page accusing it of being a scam, Binomo’s replies are that it has no agents trading on its behalf, everyone should be vigilant and reach out to them via email with questions.

The company is yet to provide answers to a list of questions regarding its Nigerian presence; whether it is aware of these scams and its relationship with financial services regulators, among other things. Alina Shulgina, whose email signature describes her as Binomo’s “Global SMM & Community Team Lead,” failed to get back with answers before handing me over to a second representative, Kseniya Potapova, who says: “I will try to figure out and let you know.”

The proprietors of mytopexchange.com, a website run by Nigerians, claim to facilitate trades in bitcoin, binary options and Olymp Trade (another trading platform whose authenticity has come under scrutiny, though their Twitter account is verified). The website has a post explaining how you could fund your Binomo account through a complex mechanism of online transfers where they act as a “third party e-currency exchanger”.

On a call with one of their authors (who says he is a financial assets trader), he acknowledged the prevalence of money-doubling scams by purported Binomo agents. But when pressed on his company’s status as a Binomo third party agent, he said they stopped facilitating Binomo trades two months ago (the above-mentioned blog post is dated 24th October 2018, a month or so after Binomo’s branding partnership with Moses). He would not clarify why they stopped, though he insists Binomo remains legitimate.

On their websites, Binomo and Olymp Trade say they are ‘category A members of the Financial Commission‘, a so-called “independent self-regulatory organization and external dispute resolution (EDR) body”. It is unclear that this body has any ties to any national government or rules-based financial regulator.

This September, the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySec) warned its citizens that binomo “does not belong to an entity which has been granted an authorization for the provision of investment services and/or the performance of investment activities”.

Why would anyone fall for this?
Aduke Yemisi Williams is an active social media user and has got her share of attention from scammers. She has not been a victim of an online money scam but has had sufficient contact with them in her DMs to curate a list of some of the more notorious accounts.

Sometimes she chooses to ignore the DMs and may play along at other times. “The bottom line is I am very careful because I wouldn’t want to fall victim.”

Playing along could be costly though, as Lucy* found out in the last week of October. ‘Otega Dennis’ promised he wasn’t dealing in MMM or Loom and “sounded so convincing we moved from twitter to WhatsApp”.

But after “he swore with his life and the lives of his family that it wasn’t a scam and [that] after this I’ll be the one telling people about this investment”, nothing came from the N7,000 ($19) – including N500 borrowed from a friend – she transferred. “I came online on Twitter and realized he blocked me. He blocked me on WhatsApp too.”

Naiveté, greed or ignorance, there are varying reasons why anyone would fall for these.

“You can’t tell me that if I invest N10,000 you’ll give me N30,000 in the next 45 minutes”, Aanu Sebiomo, a graphic designer, told me in a conversation about his money scam experience. Contacted on Twitter by ‘Mr Frank Binomo investment ltd’, Sebiomo took him to task to verify authenticity.

“I asked him what he was investing in, he didn’t give any concrete response. I went to Google and did a reverse image search of the pictures on his timeline and they belong to someone who is a CEO of [another] company. I asked him if he was the owner of the pictures and he said yes”.

Sebiomo got blocked by his scammer after this confrontation. He says he would understand if he learns someone has been scammed by similar means. But anyone investing in anything should ask key questions: What is the broker or fund manager investing in? What’s the nature of his/her social media handle? Why should I deposit into a personal account number?

Keep calm with giveaways
Sebiomo’s sister had shared her account number in the comments of an Instagram post promising a giveaway. She did not know the account wasn’t Tunde Ednut’s (as she imagined) but an account aping the influencer’s username. A hacker would not do much with an account number alone but the ease with which social media users volunteer personal information certainly emboldens would-be scammers.

In addition to her account number, Funmi had sent her scammer ‘David Kenneth’ her date of birth.

It comes down to individuals being more circumspect in conversations online. While they have policies against malicious actors and misinformation trolls, social media companies insist they are not in the business of policing content round-the-clock. As more of the world comes online – many, especially of a pre-internet generation, not very discerning about technology’s harms – the risks of online money scams will increase.

Many of those in this story say they will now stay vigilant online. Onyinyechi just graduated from a university in south-east Nigeria. Her experience has made her more careful on social media. Lucy will not countenance any online investment offers going forward, no matter how legitimate. That would be a shame as genuine investment opportunities can be found on the web. But if that’s the price to pay for being once bitten, they have no problem being twice shy.

*Names changed to protect identity.

Source: https://techcabal.com/2019/11/12/triple-your-money-inside-the-bizarre-world-of-social-media-scams/

Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.

She’s 28, currently living in Canada with the love of her life but this wasn’t always the plan. This is a story about how it unfolded.

https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/Most-recent-Naira-Life-4-1024x1024.png

Let’s start from the moment you knew it was time for Canada.
That would be 2017, precisely. I’d applied to yet another Masters’ program and gotten accepted. The tuition became an issue as I couldn’t afford it at the time.

My brother suggested I take the immigration route, saying it was cheaper than paying so much for school and then getting a job later. I wasn’t really interested because I felt immigration was going to be tedious. But I’d been on the Masters’ waka for five years at the time, and I just wanted to reach my goal.

Then one day –

Ah, the one day.
One day, I heard people shout “UP NEPA” after being without light for almost a week.

I just lost it.

Hahaha. It just had to be NEPA.
I realised I’d known this phrase since I was a kid and was wondering if I’d like my kids to see it as a norm.

https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/Blackout-1024x1024.png

Then I logged on to Twitter and all the frustrating things about Naija just rushed at me. I messaged my brother and we started researching how I could move. Right now, my entire family is on the track to moving out hahaha. I have a sibling in the U.K. also looking at a permanent move to Canada too.

Ha. Japa Clan.
Hahaha. Just my siblings actually.

Tell me about the first money Canada collected from you.
IELTS, in 2018. ₦65,000. The first time I wrote it, I didn’t get the score I wanted. By the time I was ready to write it the second time, it was already ₦75,000.

Wait, what do you mean you didn’t get the score you wanted?
IELTS is made up of four parts: speaking, reading, writing, listening.

Each part carries a total score of nine. They’ll also have a cumulative grade for you. Since the express entry was a point-based system, it works very well for you to score at least 8-7-7-7 (8 in speaking, 7 in the rest). These scores carry weight when you’re trying to see what cumulative score you might get on the Canadian immigration ranking tool. The ranking tool is to calculate points ranging from education to work experience to marital status, to age, to English language proficiency.

So whatever your cumulative points sum up to here determines if you’re qualified to enter the pool of people that will be eligible to apply for the Canadian express entry.

I scored 6.5 in writing, which messed up my entire result.

You were working while writing these exams, right?
Yeah, at an advertising agency as a client services executive. ₦80k a month. So I saved some of my income for a couple of months, while my brother sent me the balance.

Okay, what else did you pay for on this highway to Canada?
I had to pay ₦15,000 to have my transcripts sent to an evaluating body in Canada. That took a while, because of ASUU strike.

Oh, look at Nigeria fighting back to keep you.
Hahahaha. If I hear.

Anyway, I paid for that, got a reference number, and that reference number is what I used to create a profile. The evaluation money cost ₦88k when you change it to naira. It was actually paid for by my brother because the money was too much for me at the time. Also, you get a police certificate to confirm that you have no criminal record in Nigeria. That one cost me ₦3,500.

Ah, clean slates only.
Yep. Also, my husband and I were already dating at this point, and our plans aligned perfectly.

Hmm. Holy Canada. Holy Matrimony. Hearing husband for the first time in this conversation.
Hahaha. Remember that second IELTS that I wrote? I got 6.5 again. So my husband suggested that we merge our applications together and be on the journey as a unit.

Wait, did you just say unit, like a Voltron? Please explain how this works.
Hahaha. Yes, they let you do this. Apart from individuals applying, you can actually apply as a unit. Whether with child or not. For unit applications, there has to be a primary and secondary applicant. So if I’m applying with my husband who has better qualifications and IELTS scores, he’ll be the primary applicant, while I’ll be the dependant.

There are a few benefits to being the primary applicant. Like, the application profile, and correspondence. If you get permanent residency too, the secondary applicant can’t go without the primary applicant. So if the primary applicant dies, everything done burst.

Two seconds.
If you’re married, it increases your score. If you have a Masters’ Degree, it increases your score, if you have a PhD, even higher score. Then there’s the proof of funds part. For a single person, you need to have $12,000 CAD. Basically, they want you to be able to fend for yourself for at least 6 months, in case you don’t get a job immediately. As a couple, we had to keep $15,772 CAD. Applications for right of permanent residency cost us $550 CAD per head.

More payments.
My husband had money saved for years from work; God bless him. He was pretty frugal even though he earned a lot, so he covered most of the expenses.

There’s the medicals part. Basically, you need paperwork to show that you’re medically fit and you won’t be showing up in Canada with diseases that will require quarantine and stuff. That cost ₦28,000 per head.

The thing about the process is, the money can be overwhelming. But as each one came, we knocked it off. I had help from family, and of course from my husband.

Then one day, you just get a response and everything changes.

Slow down. How long did it take you to finally get a response?
The entire processing time took five months and eight days. The entire journey from that UP NEPA, took one year and 4 months.

On the 8th day after the five months, we got a request asking us to submit our passport. Then we had to wait two weeks for the passport to be returned to us.

Read the full conversation: https://www.zikoko.com/naira-life/canada-express-entry-costs/

Three Countries In One Day But Our Shortest Trip Since Benin

A day before we left Bissau for the Gambia, captain informed us that the trip would take about 5 hours. I automatically doubled that and then added on a couple of hours. The last time we thought a trip would take a couple of hours, we ended up spending two days on the road. But this time, it took:

- 7 hours including getting stamped out of Guinea-Bissau,
- Getting stamped into Senegal and out of Senegal
- Dealing with anal officers at the Gambian border before getting stamped in

This has been our shortest trip since we left Nigeria for Benin Republic and the first time we are not arriving in a city after sunset. Here’s what made all the difference – good roads.

All the way from Bissau, through Senegal and into the Gambia is a stretch of gloriously tarred highways. There are some rough patches here and there, and a couple of potholes here and there, but for the most part it’s just good roads. So good that it felt odd not being thrown out of my seat as I had gotten accustomed to.

Why did we go through Senegal?
Because there’s no other way. Unlike the Liberian situation that found us going through Guinea first to get into Liberia because the only direct route was an unmotorable road, the only way to get into The Gambia by road, is to go through Senegal first. If you take a look at the map you’d see that the Gambia is a really tiny country nestled within the Senegal region. It’s no surprise since both countries used to be a single region before the whites struck. What’s really interesting though is how different they are.

While The Gambia is Anglophone, Senegal is Francophone. And while Senegal uses CFAs, Gambia uses their own currency – The Dalasis.

We are a serious country and you’ll treat us as such.
With a population of 2 million people, Gambia is the second smallest country we’ve been to with one of the youngest government’s in Africa. Guinea Bissau is the smallest we’ve been to so far.

With a total area of 11,295 km2, it’s literally the smallest country in Africa. But they are a country regardless and that’s a fact that the immigration officers at the border seemed to want to prove yesterday. For the first time since we got on the trip ( this trip had a lot of firsts) we had an immigration officer tell us to our faces that he was going to deny us entry into the country based off the fact that he didn’t trust our motives despite the fact that we had ECOWAS passports, the only document you need to travel through West Africa.

https://jollofroad.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/jollofroad/2019/11/IMG_7514-982x1309.jpg

Since we didn’t get the names of the immigration officers, I’m going to give them the most descriptive names I can think of – Blinky and No Neck.

The hullabaloo started with Blinky. After taking a look at our passports and glancing at us with barely concealed disdain, he asked us our mission. We explained we were touring West Africa to which he replied for what purpose? “explore, see, take it all in” we replied. He eyed us, flicked through another passport and declared he wasn’t convinced.

Read the rest of the journal: https://jollofroad.zikoko.com/three-countries-in-one-day-but-our-shortest-trip-since-benin/

NYSC Diary Day 6: How Soon Is Too Early To Want To Leave Camp?

5:03 AM
It’s Sunday. The first Sunday on camp, and as soon as I wake up, I know that I’m going to drown myself in a river of sleep. Activities such as morning parade, devotion and meditation, are not going to take place today. I cannot be more glad. We are free to dress as we like until 12 when we are to return to our whites

Fellowship hour is 7:30 till about 11 am. I spend those hours doing laundry, cleaning my side of the bunk and rearranging my things. I do not go for breakfast.

1:01 PM
I visit the staff canteen for breakfast which has of course become lunch. I settle for bread, fried eggs and tea. Lunch comes not long after; Jollof (concotion, really) and chicken, can you believe it? I’m partly full when it arrives, so I eat only half of it before I get tired. I spend the hour arguing about what university is the best while telling myself I should get up and do something better with my life.

3:45 PM
We are back on the parade ground. This begins my show of shame. We are asked to march, but I keep messing up the commands, keep forgetting how to halt. I swear, it’s the chicken they gave me. I know that I am not entirely useless. I know it deep down within me. So you can imagine my deep hurt when the soldier drags me out and casts me on the rubbish heap with the rejects who cannot march. Later, he says we should go to the field and clap for the footballers. Just imagine.

My God will judge you, Mr. Soldier. MY GOD WILL JUDGE YOU.

6:10 PM
The bugle has just been blown; Nigeria has been laid to rest, no pun intended. I am supposed to join the other rejects in their clapping and cheering duties, but God forbid. A whole me, clapping and prancing like something inside hot oil? Again, God forbid. I spend the rest of my time filling in my redeployment/relocation form.

A brief information about the relocation form: it is the form that facilitates your relocation to another state. The form was given to us and is to be submitted today, with a handwritten letter requesting relocation to Bleep state on security grounds. In the form, you fill in your name, course of study, call up number, state code, reason for relocation, and the state you’re relocating to. I’m relocating to Canada, just in case you want to know.

7:03 PM
Did I tell you I signed up for OBS and got in? If I didn’t, then I did. And tonight is our first meeting. I am assigned to the programs department, for current affairs. We are drilled: be punctual, think of how to generate income, drive people’s attention, make them listen to you. We are reminded that we have only two weeks to shake things up, and we better make the most of it. By the time we are done, dinner is over. It’s yam pottage and fried fish. I like pottage, but sadly, I missed it. I end up scooping powder milk into my mouth for dinner. Didn’t they say eat dinner like a beggar?

Read the rest of the entry: https://www.zikoko.com/life/nysc-diary-day-6-how-soon-is-too-early-to-want-to-leave-camp/

NYSC Diary Day 5: What Did You Hear About Platoons?

5:20 AM
The sound of people wake me: “Dry clean your clothes, dry clean your clothes.” When I sit up to look, I see that they are men and young boys carrying white plastic bags filled with clothes to be dry cleaned. I fall back into bed and close my eyes. I am tired. I do not want to go to parade. I do not want to do anything. I simply want to leave this place. It will be a hectic day, I can sense it.

Last night, A. told me to help him get a bag of water. When I returned with the water, he had gone to the clinic for his night shift. A guy came to me for water, but I told him it wasn’t mine, so I couldn’t give him. He left. I also wanted some water, but I couldn’t take A’s water, it wouldn’t be right, since he had not seen it, so I left the water untouched and went out to beg for water elsewhere. Now imagine my anger when I wake up to find out that someone has torn open the bag of water and taken out of it. I rage, but F. tells me to calm myself; not everyone will be like me. I leave for parade still pissed.

Yesterday, Platoon 1 was in charge of everything: sanitation, kitchen duties, security, etc. At the parade ground, they are told that they performed badly. Today it is Platoon 2’s turn. I am in Platoon 2, and I know that this kind of thing na work.

7:45 AM
Work begins. I am assigned as the sanitation head, and told that everyone will be involved in the sanitation. The Platoon Leader deploys some people for security shifts. His assistant does the same for people who will be in the kitchen. Trouble is brewing. While we are taking the roll call, a lady asks me who made you secretary? Did they choose you in public or in secret?

“Sweet baby Jesus, fight this battle,” I think to myself.

9:16 AM
It takes working closely with people to discover their true characters. And in the few moments I have spent with the people in sanitation, I am starting to discover that many people are sweet and dedicated while some people, good as they may seem, are quite deficient in that moral nutrient called respect or courtesy.

10:03 AM
Breakfast is pap and akara. Honest to God, it is a great meal. I didn’t have dinner last night, so it’s a welcome relief. I mix in milo and some powdered peak milk. It feels like heaven.

https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/IMG-20191110-WA0001.jpg

Yesterday, I signed up to join the OBS. But while other camps just absolve interested members, audition them or something, our own OBS here is something else. We are asked to design a program, submit it on or before 10:00 AM, and then the man in charge will decide if we made it in or not. I submit my own assignment, help the assistant platoon leader to submit hers too. We wait to see of we’ll make it.

OBS is the Orientations Broadcasting Service, the body that handles media in NYSC camp.

2:00 PM
Lunch is eba and egusi soup. I am in the kitchen, assisting in its preparation. I help to cut the pepper, wash the meat. I attempt to blow dirt out of the egusi.

https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/IMG-20191110-WA0000.jpg

While at this duty, I realise again that decorum is a costly thing when it comes to some people. Take this Bros for instance. He is loud and rude and every adjective for people who think they can talk, must be leader of the group they belong to, cannot listen to anyone’s opinion, cannot have anybody rule over them, and always objectify women. Picture such a kind of person. Add that he likes to talk sex and other lewd things in public.

He spearheads the conversation about ejaculation and kayan mata and girls he’s had sex with and will have sex with and so on. He sings Saheed Osupa (which I like, to be honest, because my Dad played his songs a lot while I was a child). He picks a fight with the assistant platoon head. He talks about her in third person: “Some people always think that…” You know, that kind of thing. We manage to curtail that nastiness. But little do we know that it will soon end in tears.

Read the rest of the entry: https://www.zikoko.com/life/nysc-diary-day-5-what-did-you-hear-about-platoons/

homesteady:
Please don't abandon us here oh.

Not at all

ProudBornoBoy:
Sir, where did you do your primary assignment in Borno State?

Still in camp.

NYSC Diary Day 4: Camp, The Place Lectures Come Alive

First of all, thank you all for the kind words of encouragement. Updates will flow everyday unti day 21!

5:40 AM
It is Friday, and now, all our activities have started to become routine. Wake up, make a dash to the tap for water, go to the bathroom, dress up, head to the parade ground for devotion and morning drills.But now there is more, and it’s because we have been sworn in.

Now, Nigeria has her own sleeping and waking hours, our dear country whose citizens work tirelessly. We are told that every day, whenever the bugle goes off at 6:00am, we are to stand still. When the same repeats itself at 6:00pm, we are to stop and stand still. I want to ask, “But what if I’m in the middle of dying?”(I will not die in Jesus name *eyeroll*) Orisirisi has started to happen in camp, but I don’t even know it yet.

8:00 AM
One of the orisirisi that is happening is the fact that we have now been left to ourselves. Not in a completely independent way though, we have soldiers who act as our platoon leaders. I am in Platoon two, and you won’t believe all the drama my eyes have seen.

https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/IMG-20191108-WA0020.jpg

But wait first, let me tell you about one orisirisi: lectures. Yes, being bonafide members means that we will be “killed”with lectures. The first one is something on security and protection of lives and property, how to safeguard yourself from attack, how to help corps members develop adequate sense of security. It is an interesting lecture, if I will be honest, but I really just want to sleep.

We head to the parade ground for the drills. Now that we do things according to platoons, it is a little more informal, not the kuku kill me drills that will have you questioning if you’re receiving punishments for sins your ancestors committed.

Being left alone means that everything is now a competition. Everything. And every eye is on the lookout for the platoon that will emerge as the best. You know Nigerians na, everyone is now attempting to outdo themselves.

A brief gist about my own platoon: a guy was voted in as the head. A lady wanted it first; she is the one who has been in charge of everything platoon related including creating a WhatsApp group, handing out kits to people, etc. Long and short of it, a lot of us already saw her as platoon head.

Only for soldier to say that we’d have to select/vote in our leader. When lady came out, soldier said no, that a lady cannot be the head. Because why? Because she is a lady, and ladies are the ones who faint the most since they cannot handle the pressure and heat of the sun.

My people, na so kasala burst o.

Okay, maybe not exactly sha, but we dragged it for long. Asked soldier if there was a rule stating that a lady cannot be head and must be assistant alone. Soldier said no. Then why can’t we vote her in? No cogent reason. When it was time to vote, our lady had four votes. The guy had over twenty five.

Only ladies faint, only ladies faint, but today during evening drill, about five guys fainted. A number of these guys faked it, but doesn’t that tell you something?

Breakfast was bread and tea (as usual) and a boiled egg. I keep my egg for lunch, and pay N50 to have an egg fried. I add Milo and Peak powder milk to my tea, and each time I sip it, I remember that it is only one life I have and that I must chop it properly. Na Borno dem post me to, no be kill I kill person.

12:45 PM
Another lecture. This is how we don enter am. We gather at the parade ground, under the pavilion. It is hot, cramped. This lecture is one we are delighted to hear. It is about how to redeploy. Just imagine the joy that erupted from us when the man began to speak. In a way, I feel for those officials. I imagine them thinking, “Look at these ingrates. We feed you, accommodate you, and this is how you repay us? Corpses are scum!” But duh. It will take only God to keep some people from not relocating out of this place.

https://www.zikoko.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2019/11/IMG-20191109-WA0003.jpg

I've gotten a column to share my story on https://www.zikoko.com. Read the rest of the entry: https://www.zikoko.com/life/nysc-diary-day-4-camp-the-place-lectures-come-alive/

NOTE THAT I WILL STILL SHARE UPDATES HERE DAILY