An Episode of spiced service memory!
|This is a Thursday Makurdi morning, an NYSC morning... 10:35, so we can say 'Nmaochi!'
Under a mango tree which spreds out its branches, people are seen seated on creaky benches and clothed in different variations of the paraphernalia of national youth service. Their feet litter Jungle boots and white tennis shoes on the ground with wild abandon.
Side talks here and there.
Nursing mothers and the pregnant, roll out one by one, freely!
The air of exhaustion is everywhere. Faces are knotted, minds counting down to p.o.p, mouths hissing and Clara Chinaeke Chekwube grumbling: Ogini, Have we not tried enough?
There has been a long exchange between executives and floor members. Scholastica Okokon stretches out and yawns, as she is about to move a motion for the ADJOURNMENT of the meeting, this can be said to be her NYSC hobby: putting a sharp knife to the throats of CDS meetings as if they were ileya rams...
Samuel Bakare and Ismail Salisu (Corps editors) are critically drilling their gazes into a copy of Ekokopa magazine in the demeanor of studious students studying studiously!
The whole group is tired, 101%!
And in the sluice of seconds... Everything changes! Backbones become stiff with 'dread', Eyes shine like okpa sold at Ninth Mile, in Enugu! Everybody looks up. Its an attention!
Wetin happen, did an angel pass???
Oh! It is Mr. Wisdom Agida who has stormed the yard dressed in a white shirt, tucked into a milk chinos trouser, strapped to his waist by a brown belt reflecting the colour of his boots zipped to his legs.
He has come like a thief in the day, when people are about to waft out of the secretariat in different directions like smoke from a burning bush.
He has come when people are about to hug the reprieve of the aftermaths of CDs.
He is dangerously armed with just one weapon... Just one... the gun of his mouth!
[He fires, the first round openly, which wheezes and falls on the ground]
-Where is Dele and his syndicate group members? Where are they?
[Mr. Eboi Wise thaws at the ice of silence that has frozen the air, he gets up in a most effusive manner to give his normal inaugural rejoinders]
-Ehm! Sir, take it from me that they has all left this CDS and went to a some where that is so... [he get theatrical with his hands, bobbing forward] so more better than Editorials and they have done this so, with a anger spirit and their khaki now turn leather, and normally khaki can never be turn leather...
[Gbraaaaa! Oga is confused, he drops his Lenovo pad on the excos table with a thump and sinks his hands into his pockets for a copy of #Brighter grammar but he can't find it. With his handkerchief he mops the beads of sweat which now adorn his confusion and his shaved head. He musters strength to press his trigger again]
-Okay, Mr. Wise, our Orator and gramatic traitor... that's okay... Perfectly okay. Am serious!
[Mr. Wise is happy, Mr. Wise is encouraged on being hailed as a gramatic traitor! He has not gotten the message yet, he injects the ears of everybody again with his vocal pain]
-Oh! Thank you sir, I am proud to be a Faculty of English from Uniben. Two-One sir. Second class, the up one and a diploma in Mass comuni...
[Oga quenches him sharp sharp, he doesn't want to waste all his bullets on Mr. Wise. Smilingly, but with undetected derision, he sticks the barrel of his gun into Mr. Wise throat]
- Oh.... Is that? Congratulations! it's okay, that's okay...
Please sit down, yes!
Sit down, thank you for having your say!
[He breathes in and out to ventilate his system]
-So, they changed CDS group because they couldn't undertake a research that any simpleton can do?
Even small Jesse, my boy, would know better!
I asked them to write on the 'Concoctions and traditional medicines' of the Benue people of Nigeria...
[certified Rose-Camille Aneke cuts in with her radio voice]
-Sir, please I stand to be corrected, and i think there is a miscommunication somewhere, along the line.
What we, the Editorial board members, think you gave them is contrary to what you have just said. What they were working on before they changed CDs is 'Culture and Tradition of the Benue people'. And we think it is too broad for any syndi...
[He faces the gun at her, and gives her a hushing shot and even those watching from Drugfree Cds find his shooting skills really tactical. They clap for him, especially Femi Alabi shouting 'Nice one!' 'Nice one!']
-Would you keep quiet and turn down the volume of your radio set, I know what I am saying or do you think you are talking to your village chief? [she gapes, mouth widely open as if she has seen ojuju Calabar]
You people hear me, but you don't listen to me...
What is so difficult to undertake there?
And why are you wearing that blue shoe, did you think you were coming to a bakery to buy bread from your Fatherland?
You corps members are too flippant,
critically crass,
mentally limp,
And you are lackadaisically pompous about the non-fiction of your cruising first class in the bandwagon of mediocrity!
[Bakare pulls his glasses and frees the uppermost button of his khaki jacket, he suddenly begins to feel tight. CDs members begin to scratch their necks, heads or anything they can find to scratch. Some like Onyebueke Amarachi can't resist the urge to look up, at the mango tree with its dry leaves falling 'yakata' as if in believe and confirmation of Oga's words. He continues shooting, trigger happy, without missing]
I refuse to be part of your generation, though I should be. After, people like you would quickly propound an NYSC conspiracy theory on how the Z.I and Mr. Bako swallowed your INEC privileges!
Why won't they, if possible, when you people think like snails, like ejula, the types that we forbid to eat! Its appalling how you people are willing to turn this scheme into a paradise of bad odour!
[His eyes wanders around the small crowd. Bullets are still remaining, he sees a prey. A good one and takes a clean shot]
- You, cartoonist, remind me your name [he is told] oh Ezekiel Osifeso? Ezekiel. Yes! Yes! get up!
[Ezekiel gets up, unfolds himself from the heavy backpack embraced to his body]
Are you part of us today, because you have been sleeping?
Why are you sweating in this cold weather, as if you are battling Ebola?
Is it pepper soup that runs in your veins, or were you paid one hundred and ninety five naira as monthly allowance?
Tor! I don't seem to ever understand you people who read Art. I feel that you people would better be comfortable in shrines! There is a stranger in your characters, that I feel I would never meet.
That aside, I have not seen any iota of seriousness in all of you for some time now, you need to appease my disappointment....
[He has one bullet left, a hydra headed one. For all to partake in it, he fires it into the air with his last statement, and it gives a banging noise-- gboom! ]
-Nobody leaves this meeting till I get a blueprint on how our next project would be, I would be back in the next four hours to check on you, only Tega Oghenechovwen can leave! So someone should better move a motion for the further ENJOYMENT of this meeting !!!
By
Tega Oghenechovwen Paul
Unforgettable memories...
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