It’s that time of the year again, some eager, some not so eager, some young, some not so young graduates from all parts of Nigeria jump on the bike, bus, cab, train, plane, private jet that’ll take them to the much talked about N.Y.S.C orientation camps all around the country. I’m particularly interested in this set because my kid sister is among the many graduates going through the process this year and for the past couple of days across all social media channels there’s been all kinds of discussions on the subject.
Knowing me and the TNC culture, I’m sure you know we are not here to discuss the common issues ad topics associated with NYSC. I won’t spend time talking about posting drama, the poor quality of the facilities or the safety issues because to be fair, you already have a lot of conversations going on online on those topics. Today, as encouraged by one of my friends (such awesome friends I have), w are going to be discussing the ‘sexy’ side of NYSC – something I originally titled National Youth Sex Convention.
For those of you that read that and thought, exaggeration, well, I guess we’ll all find out today. I remember going through the NYSC orientation exercise some years back and with my ‘innocent’ self, I really didn’t expect anything over the top. I mean, you have hundreds of young, sexually active men and women in the same space for three weeks, of course there’ll be the few ‘isolated’ cases, well, so I thought, if only I knew.
From my first night in camp, I got a good idea of what I was in for when I walked in on two of my roommates err..having a ‘good time’ with a chic they had only met that day. Let’s not get into how I almost died of hunger that night because I ‘excused’ them and the Maami market was closed before I could gain access to the room. I was later rebuked by my roommates for not only showing them courtesy but for not waiting to accept their invitation for me to join their party.
Being the inquisitive person I am, you do not even want to imagine the things I saw and witnessed through my remaining days in camp. From the condom dump behind my room to tales of SinParties, homosexual rumps in the male/female hostels, tales of corpers escaping camp with their ‘camp catch’ to go to guest houses, to female corpers sleeping with soldiers to help manipulate their posting. There was sex everywhere in camp and you didn’t need to dig deep to find it.
In case you were wondering, my orientation camp wasn’t in Lagos so it isn’t a matter of location. I had friends in the Lagos camp and they had equally ‘interesting’ stories to tell. Sex on the parade ground, publicly for all to see. Sex in the Maami market and all kinds of lewd acts that most parents can not even imagine.
Well, I guess some of you reading already know these things but I know there are still a lot of people out there convinced nothing of the sort happens in camp. After all there are ‘measures’ put in place particularly to prevent these things. There are separate hostels for men and women, the camp ground I well lit at night and there’s even a strict curfew in place.
However where there’s a will(y), there’s a way.
Today I want us to draw attention to the subject of sex at the NYSC orientation camps, not just for the fun of it but because I think those heading out to camp need to at least know what they are getting into.
Let’s keep the discussion as open as possible, if you have to comment anonymously, please do. Go ahead and share those crazy NYSC orientation camp tales. Then go ahead to tell us if you think it can or should be curbed and if not, then how can we help these young people stay safe. You know the drill, use the comment box to express you.
