I got my call up letter close to a year after graduation. Do I still need to tell you the name of my school? I didn’t think so too! You would have already known. I was posted to Bayelsa State, silly me! I didn’t runs it and I was seriously beefing my friend that was posted to Lagos (we all know how it’s done). His posting to Lagos didn’t surprise me, however what surprised me that period was my hall mate that was posted to Taraba but later got a Lagos posting. I saw her call up letter clearly read Taraba when we all collected ours and I also saw her with a letter that read Lagos. How did that happen? People get leg o!!!
I called my brother to tell him where I was posted to and he said I should go to Bayelsa for the 3 weeks orientation camp (seriously why is the orientation that long?) and that he would help me redeploy. I didn’t know GOD had better plans for me. The day before I was scheduled to head for camp I bought my bus ticket from Cross Country, got all my stuff ready and when it was about 9pm I went to see my dad to tell him I would be leaving for Bayelsa first thing the next morning and as you would have guessed tax the man too. When I left my old man’s place, my cousin and I headed for a joint nearby to have a few drinks before going home to sleep then prepare for the long bus ride the next morning. All my stuff were in my cousin’s car and something kept pricking me to go and drop my bag at home first before the faaji (before having fun), but I didn’t.
After a few bottles with my cousin and a family friend, we decided to leave and as I was paying for the asun we had, my cousin came back to me saying he couldn’t find the car. I thought it was a joke until we found ourselves asking the guy that parked where we parked before the car got missing if he had seen our car at that same spot where he parked like if he had seen it he would have parked his car right on top of our own (Did that sentence even make sense?). I was dead inside, I couldn’t utter a word when it dawned on me that truly the car had been stolen. What was I to tell my mum, dad, brothers and the people that mattered? We went to the nearest police station and it was obvious they couldn’t help. All my documents (WAEC certificate, call up letter, BSc statement of result and a host of other things) were gone. I thought of a way out as we strolled home. I called my dad to tell him what happened, he was pissed but he calmed down later. I couldn’t look my mum in the eye to tell her I was drinking whilst all my documents were stolen with her nephew’s car.
As I lay down to sleep I was hoping things would get better by morning. I was totally wrong, these items including my cousin’s car had disappeared for good. We went to court to swear an affidavit and also to the police station to get a police report as I had decided to go to Bayelsa and see if I would be allowed into camp with photocopies of all the documents required. The police report was to serve as evidence that my documents were stolen. My friends were already calling me to find out how far I had gone with my journey to Bayelsa. Plans had changed, I couldn’t ride with Cross Country again, had to go to Port Harcourt by air then connect Bayelsa via bus or cab and yes Cross Country refunded my money. I called my friend who was serving in Port Harcourt that I would be spending the night with him because my flight was late in the evening. I got to Port Harcourt and my friend was already at the airport to get me. As we went to his quarters I narrated the events of the previous night to him. I had not eaten all day and I didn’t have an appetite but I managed to drink a bottle of Lacasera before falling asleep.
To be continued.
Thanks for reading……………………………………………………………………………………. BLESS!!!
