₦airaland Forum

You wake up today, overly jubilant that the journey you compulsorily embarked on some months back is coming to a justifiable end. You smile. It is a day you have wished for since you were lured into that quasi-prison of a camp by an act you don’t know when it was enacted. What you know, however, is that today represents a grand finale for you and your ilk and must be celebrated on a high-note without a blink.
Aboard a bus on your way to the ground where that thick-papered document will be given to you as an evidence of your struggle on the khaki for the past eleven months, you begin to romanticize the jobs you have applied for a fourth night ago; the federal job promise by one alhaji you expertly arranged female otondos for, the electric moments with Sola, the frolicking and romantic twists with Aisha and the subtle smooching with Ijeoma that night in the family house. You smile.

Your phone beeps. You draw your pattern and it lets you in. Therein lies Ifunanya’s message. Oh your camp crush. You scribble a message back. You recall giving her your ATM at POS point in the camp; the way she had withdrawn twenty thousand naira with it and helped you squander it with wild abandon on the carnival day. Vengeance surges up in your head and you scribble another message asking her for a date after the POP. She accedes. Yes. You must take from her, albeit in another form, what was taken from you.

Immediately you arrive the POP ground, energetically, you alight the bus. You see some of your platoon members and teary smiles trickle out your face. What a small world. You hug one another as though by so doing, your inability to communicate ever since you left camp would be appeased, as though the world was coming to an unforeseen expiration. Thin lines of emotion wrinkle your face as you walk about waiting for that esteemed document. Some minutes from now, demands of nature will steal you away from many friends – the ugly, bad and the good ones, you agree. There are many of them you wish to have around forever and some you wish death. Instant death. This reawakens in you, the stale memory of the fiery face of your Local Government Inspector; how he victimized you because he caught you one ugly Sunday afternoon sneaking stealthily away from Sola’s lodge, how he made you walk bare-footed on a CDS day because, just like other big NYSC outlaws, you wore your white timberland shoes to CDS. He is one of those in your death-wish list.

It gets to your turn and you gladly, with two hands, collect the much awaited document. You cast a gleeful look at it and therein is your passport and your name stylishly but correctly inscribed on it. It is yours. Your medal. The summation of your twelve months struggle. Right about now, it is to you, like the king in a draughtboard which must not be killed, but must help drive your way to success. You immediately enlist with others, in the congratulatory exchange, and you feel the tints of affectation which your actions exude. You think it’s just the final thing you owe some good-natured people around.
Now at home, you are bracing up for the high-end party. You call Ifunanya. She is not picking up the call. You try again, again and again, but to no avail. A vain attempt it is. In agony, anxiety, you pull off your khaki and slip into your stock jean and T-shirt. To the party you go, some thousands from your last allawee in your pocket. You drink and got drunk and that was it. The POP is over.

A month coasts by, life pushes you into a sudden realization of the next stage. Your bank sends you an end-of-month statement of account but non for credit alert. Then you unconsciously begin to forget Sola and her wide hips, Aisha and her meaty lips, Ijeoma and her pointedly ovoid breast and Ifunanya, eyes of a mermaid. You now constantly refresh your inbox. You see jobberman, Ngcareers, hotjob, and their likes advertising for ghostly jobs. You are already tired of sending applications through them but with listlessness, and dying hope, you continue to apply.

Another month elapses, you haven’t heard from Alhaji who you arranged some female otondos for. Disappointingly, you dial his number. Good God, he picks but he now speaks core Hausa for you. You begin to explain and explain yourself but the line goes dead. You dial it again but he is too busy to pick it. A blow. Frustration sets in. The money in your account is already turning a red eye.

Another month glides away and you have to recourse to something for income.Yes. Soccer betting. Elated at the idea, you yank your computer open, slotted in your modem and there you are. You open an account with bet9ja, nairabet and merrybet. You are good to go. You must play your way out of this looming poverty, you tell yourself.

The fourth month is edging closer and you are still poor. Bet9ja, nairabet, and merrybet have collected their share from your dwindling coffers. Increasingly, your poverty level is becoming undeniably alarming and you can barely feed at the moment. Ouch! What a world.
As you celebrate the end of your service year today, do not allow this to be your story…

OKEKE FRANKLIN N. (unnobzava.com)

Try man

When I saw him, revving like a vexed horse and coiling like a pricked millipede, I just thought: oh hunger again. Was my presumption right? I think it was this time and relevant too. This was not just the first time I'm seeing him wearing such visage. In short it now occurs as many times as providence allows us to see. The lad, not quite looking more than five in age, lives close by, just next door but status and perhaps, age difference smothered through our tenancy relationship.

As it has happened many times, or as I have allowed it to happen many times, whenever he pegs at my door with such face betraying hunger; a kind of laying ambush for me, for my emotions, I'm often forced to dig into my purse and push a note into his palm. Thank sir, he would say, his demeanour indicating that I have performed my rituals towards him that very moment. I often feel it too a feeling that follows one's belief in and deep conviction about the correctness of ones sacrifice to his God. But watch out for his next step.

This morning, still groaning at the near sleeplessness that has been having a toll on me lately, I heard a soft knock on my door, a dent on the quietude of that early morning which of course has been to my very delight. But I pretended deafness, wishing I hadn't heard it in the first place. But the second knock came, with somewhat vehemence. The knock couldnt have been done with a fist, I thought. It could well have been done with a stone, a thick stick or anything hard but definitely not with a bare fist. I jumped up, leaving my deafness behind. When I opened the door. What! This lad again! He was already there, clad in unclothedness, making the same face, a hunger-laden face, a dreadful face. I peered into his eyes with rage, hoping he would understand the message but he challenged and charged at my rage with a daring eyes. Gosh, I muttered a little muttering that could barely make it past the walls of the mind. Guess what I did. I played my palm through his hair, wishing it would permeate his head too. Some moments later, I dissolved into my room and shut the door behind me. Not only that, I fastened the bolt and lay still on my mat-like foam, unconcerned, disconnected from that sombre theatrics.
Some few minutes flew past and silence maintained its course. And I wished for more of the stillness. I wished for non-existence of my very existence. But none of these wishes played out in realistic terms.

Unfortunately, it was no sooner than I had started laughing off my non observance of my perennial ritual toward the lad that I began to hear a cry, a menacing cry. The sound was as if it could perform a filtering through the eye of a needle for it radiated a needle-like shrillness. It was then that I began to hope to be immersed in absolute somnolence; hoped to kill that sound; that peace-shattering sound. But I couldn't. He maintained his stance through the cry. He protested with unrestrained rigidity, knocking into me, a forced knowledge of his presence.

Despite the force which his antics commanded, I remained bodily detached from his show but instinctively attached. As his cry turned to sobs, I began to melt into his plea; began to brace up for another ritual. But this time, I decided not to dole out any dough. Guess what I sacrificed. Just two packets of tummy-tummy noodles. When I gave him this, he casted a despising look on it and threw himself to the floor, reeling. Just from God-knows-where, the mother made an appearance, collected the packets from me and took his reeling lad with her.

What do I do the next time this lad appears?