Service Year Boulevard 39

Sweet story!

Here goes my Service year Boulevard...

I lived a really protected life while growing up, my folks were really strict and being the good girl and only girl child that I was, I followed all their instructions to the later even while in the university. in fact back in University, I would get surprise visits from My Mum her excuse was that she was in the area and so decided to check on me. So for my NYSC I wanted to work my posting somewhere as far away from home as possible. I'm from the middle belt and the farthest away I’ve been from home is Abuja and that's because I was shipped off to a strict and very religious all girls boarding school.

When my Dad asked me were I wanted to serve I said Akwa Ibom, before then I wanted to serve in Lagos but I met some guy who told me that Akwa Ibom state was the best place to serve. He made it seem like serving in AKS was the best thing ever. I was sold, I started to google NYSC in Akwa Ibom state, NYSC experience in Akwa Ibom, Nairaland became my best friend. And all I got were positive reviews and it's always been a romantic fantasy of mine to marry someone from the south.I love the south, they are not as conservative as those of us from the North, they love to explore from sexuality to rich cultures, cuisines, you name it!

Back to my NYSC gist. When I told my Dad about serving in AKS he was having none of that, the way my melodramatic Mum(I love you Mummy) was shouting not Akwa Ibom! Anything but Akwa Ibom! you would think I told them I was going to North Korea or the Bermuda triangle. I stood my ground and they had to give in. Lest I forget I served in 2014, Batch C to be precise.


My Mum took me from our State to Enugu and dropped me off at AKTC park, she didn't leave until the vehicle started moving, she was so worked up ehn! she will ask me C..... hope you carried your anointing oil, hope you carried your mosquito net, everybody in the bus noticed us and they were like Madam e don do, no be small pikin she be...lol Because of this I made friends with everybody in the bus, even the bus driver. The Journey to AKS was so not boring, because everybody wanted to tell me something good about Akwa Ibom. I was told that Ikot Ekpene, Uyo and Eket were the most urban places and that I should pray I get posted to these places. When I got down at Itam park I got numbers from many people in the bus telling me to call them when I leave camp so that I wont get stranded, those people gave me a good first impression of the state.



Akwa Ibom is really very beautiful, Uyo especially, lovely weather too except when it starts raining for a week non stop and you have to wear rubber shoes and a shower cap..lol but it is really beautiful. Getting to the camp in Nsit Atai was another drama on its own but I got there in one piece my parents almost killed my battery with their incessant calls.


Let me not bore you with camp registration details, very boring and stressing something the only thing interesting about that long queue was watching the IJGB people and their shenanigans and also drooling over hot boys. I swear its like they sent all the hot boys to camp in AKS so much hotness everywhere.


My roommates were the best, and those girls were so fine ehn, we were like sisters, you wont know we had never met prior to that time. My Bonkie especially sadly she had to leave early something about call to bar cant remember the details.


Our state coordinator was very strict I didn't mind because I was already used to all that where I came from, but she was also motherly. Though I didn't go to the cafteria except jollof and chicken day the food I saw on peoples plates looked really good and there were generally no complaints. The night I got to camp I ran to mammi to go and eat my first afang and I loved it sadly it did not love me back as I would later get to realise that my tummy has zero tolerance for the okazi leaf.

I had plenty camp admirers but no camp boo, I made a lot of friends in camp, plenty plenty fine guys. I even clocked 21 in camp that night my new friends threw me a birthday party in mammi, I was introduced to alcohol, but I didn't particularly like the taste or smell of it. Did i forget to mention that i was in the parade, very stressful but eventually rewarding ordeal.


Something funny happened in camp, someone(cant remember who) donated a cow to the camp, the next morning we heard that the cow had died. Apparently thunder struck at night and the only thing it could land on was the poor, unfortunate cow (may its soul rest in peace) the cow was buried and our state coordinator replaced it with another cow.

One day in camp I took my clothes to the dry cleaners and one of the young boys there said and I quote "Aunty I really like you,I hope they post you to my place" and I smiled and said where is your place he said "Ikot Abasi" that name didn't sound familiar so I said "God forbid" but he was like Aunty we have 24 hours light there o so I was like okay if it is Gods will.

As God would have it I was posted to Ikot Abasi and that experience changed my life for ever. A month after I resumed the school I was posted to went on strike and I didn't want to keep idle so I got a job as a sales supervisor in an electronics firm. My first job ever!

 I called my Dad and told him he was so furious when he heard about nature of the job, but there was nothing he could do. The job turned out to be more than what I bargained for, I was going to work by 7 and coming home by 7 in the evening. I lost weight, the work schedule was much bigger than I expected it was a big electronics store and I was in charge of two branches. But gradually I began to grow on the job, learnt how to manage my time, learnt how to audit and take stock and all that and even the hardest part, I learnt how to deal with the staff who were all older than me but I was supposed to be their subordinate. I had to leave the job when they called off the strike because there was no way I could do both and not break down.


Working there however taught me that I was stronger than I looked, I made a friend in Ikot Abasi, a very special friend called I, he was a Banker working there but from the East, he became like a mentor to me, he taught me how to save my allowee, how to be more responsible, he showed me the other side of me that I did not know existed, a lot of people thought we were dating, I think what we had was stronger than love because I met him a virgin and he left me a virgin even though he was a very baaaaad guy. I remember the day we took his body count of the number of women he had f**ked since he came to AKS the numbers will shock you. We literally had no secrets, when I called him my role model he will laugh and say Onyi gold( that was his name for me) you are the only one who sees the good in me.

I was one heck of a busy bee, I registered for a bead making class because I had always been obsessed with jewellery making, I was an exco with NCCF in my zone and I was the General secretary of all the CDS groups which was a very serious affair because I had to make a report for our devils henchman of an L.I who lived to to try out new sadistic experiments on corp members each week, missing CDS was like missing the rapture.

Its been over a year now and I still look back to my NYSC experience as the experience that changed my life, I came back stronger, I came back a home a hustler, my parents realised that I had changed and I could no more be controlled and made to do their bidding, now I have a sense of responsibility and I know that there is so much to me that I haven't discovered, when the challenges come now I see them as an adventure and I ride the waves whether good or bad.

There goes my long tori, mbok I hope I did north west your time?

WOW"....I like your story!....Are you still a fergin?LOL