Kubwa
Camp ended up being a fun place; it ended up being a fantastic experience that
will remain engraved in my memory for as long as I live. I felt like giving up
at the start, I felt like screaming back at the soldiers wielding their silly
whips and screaming at me. I felt like strangling some of the people I met,
people who were absolutely, unapologetically nutcases and murdering them. I felt
like laying waste to the already dilapidated Camp Secretariat at times when I was
told I would have to come back tomorrow to get this or that form or to sign
this or that document. I felt like grabbing for the jugular of the sky and
beating the shit out of it on days when, without warning, and with me outside
standing on some miserable queue, it would up and open like some deranged sesame,
and a downpour would begin. I got to my wits’ end very many times in Kubwa Camp
especially during the first week. But still, it was a fantastic experience, one
I would not trade for anything in the entire world.
After
Camp, for my Primary Assignment, I was posted to a Pharmaceutical Research
Institute. Actually, the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and
Development, the institute was located in Idu Industrial area, at poverty
stricken Abuja. Idu was not very far from Abuja main town, in fact, on days of
towering strength, one could walk from Idu to Life Camp, which is in main town
Abuja. The fact that a place like Idu was located in Abuja was the first shock
that greeted me. Idu is so irrelevant and minuscule, one could drive past it
without even knowing it is there, and you should, too, to be honest. In my
thoughts, Abuja was all mansions and paved ways and boys hawking fancy things
like lavender face towels and short bread biscuits and Ribena and things. I was
not mentally prepared for an Abuja where the roads were not tarred and were red
and disgusting when it rained, an Abuja where there were more dumpsites than
people, more little shops that sell tomato and pepper than houses, an Abuja where
houses were made from mud and old aluminum roofing sheets. That Abuja was
definitely not the one I had in mind on the day I collected my call-up letter
and saw FCT. The trouble with Abuja, the biggest trouble with Abuja is that
there is so much difference between rich people and poor people. The poor
people are just so unfortunately, miserably poor; but the rich are rich in such
brazen, in-your-face manner that makes you want to ask serious questions about
inequality. I tried to do that in this piece I called ‘What is Abuja?’ Potentially, this
trend is extremely harmful, especially for these rich people because a time
will come when a rich man will blare the horn of his Chrysler Jeep in the ear
of the poor man and the poor man would not have it in him to take it on the
chin and would match towards the Chrysler Jeep and open the door and bring the
rich man out and only your mind can complete this story.
I
did not enjoy my time at the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and
Development in the real sense of the word, mostly because a) I did not care much
for the type of work they did there and b) the sheer drudgery of monotonousness.
I got used to it at a point and I began to enjoy the idea of it but not it
itself. And so it continued and continued and it seemed like it would never
end, but now we are here! NIPRD only served, for me, as something to add to my
CV, I worked at NIPRD for a year and I prepared lots of media and cultured lots
of microorganisms and did lots of sensitivity tests - none of which gave
positive results, by the way - and a whole lot of walking from the Microbiology
and Biotechnology Laboratory on the second floor to the TB Laboratory on the
ground floor, and a lot of confirming that people had Tuberculosis. SMH. The
list is endless. There is time for everything, as people say all the time. My
sun has almost set as a Corps member, and therefore also has this title ‘Residues
of Kubwa Camp’, I could have written more, I just did not have the time, or I was
lazy, or both. Thank you for reading if
you read. And if you did not, you should.
Till
next time,, Keep dreaming!!
