The true and sincere nature of man is shown by the events that takes
place in his life. It is true that man's real existence is nothing. Man
himself is nothing! All he has is nothing. Even everything around him
and indeed things surrounding him are nothing but a charade!
As I sit here in an empty school, awaiting the arrival of learners
that may never come, for me to teach, I realise that I am just wastin
away by the minute, rather by the second!
I left home far away in the south western part of the country,
pregnant with life changing, course charting ideas that I thought to
pass to the coming generation through the opportunity of the NYSC Scheme
of the federal government. I was hoping an expecting real challenges
that will bring out the that hidden man in me and at the same time take
out the kid in the learners I hope to encounter during my stay in the
hinterlands of the Eastern heartland. But these were not to be!
In the eastern heartland, I was orientated, drilled, trained,
instructed in the traditional NYSC way to surmount the challenges which
they say I will face in the service year. Till now, I haven't seen any,
except if sleeping, eating and walking will be called challenges!
While at the orientation camp, backed by my pregnant desire to
impart useful knowledge, I prayed and wished to be taken to the state
capital where I know that more than enough challenges will await me and
as a Lagos boy, such was already in my blood! It wasn't to happen!
Lo and behold! I was thrown into a community more than an hour an
one thousand naira away from the capital city of the eastern heartland!
This is a community with power supply that is as erratic as an epileptic
woman. The power supply comes once every two weeks and lasts a few
hours, sorry minutes! To add to it, the community, albeit, the whole
local government has no potable water. To get water for anything at all,
bathing and drinking inclusive, you wait for the rains or you hold your
money and container and walk for miles before getting to one of the
private and solitary boreholes run by individuals.
These I don't see as challenges because I expect not much from a
village! The baby I am carrying in me is more than that! Impart the
right values into the younger generations, it cried in me.
The P. P. A accepted me and I began to prepare for the new term and
also nursing hopes that my baby has seen a good environment to be
nursed. Thus, I await the birth of a new term which, then I thought,
will in turn help in the birth of my ripe foetus.
I went back to the south west which housed my home to prepare things
that will aid the easy delivery of this good baby in this new found
environment. After that, I came back to my new 'home' to settle down and
await the new term.
The Village received me well and helped me settle quickly into its
too quiet and nature filled environment. I began counting hours, days,
weeks, and a month! Waiting patiently for my P. P. A to open.
Finally, schools re opened and I excitedly ran from my home to the
school to start the process and familiarisation of myself to my audience
in whose hands my baby will grow. I got the shocker of my life, when I
met rats instead of students in what should have been my school!
I panicked, went back home. I called my principal who assured me
that it's just for that day. They willl show up he said. But they
haven't and might even not! Why? Because they have changed their
schools! The Governor of the eastern heartland declared a free education
policy and so the mass exodus of students in private schools to the
public schools! But this notably happened only in rural areas as private
schools in the urban areas of the state still flourish. My P. P. A
being private and being in a rural village, also got a part of the
bullet!
Come to think of it, how much is their school fee? A paltry two
thousand five hundred naira across board is what these villagers can't
pay! The truth is even that the children mostly spend more than that in
the preparation and actual school changing! They sewed new uniforms and
bought new sandals! So I still carry my dream and I am wasting away
brain draining in this village when there are hundreds of places where
my baby is needed in my native south western home!
On a lighter and brighter side, my monthly NYSC is clearance is
still being signed for me by the principal while I do nothing except
sleep, eat and walk around! Also since religion is, as said by Karl
Marx, the opium of the people, I take it as a divine act to be here and
learn that really, man cannot, all the time architect his own fortune or
otherwise!
As I hear the principal's car approach, I pray to my God, Who knows
all things, for a miracle to happen and that students will come and I
will be able to deliver what I have for them!
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