Diary of a Zamfara Corper -By Chikelu Chino

MY SON AND NYSC: BATCH A 2040…

Dear Son,

I’m in Kaura Namoda, a town I read about in my tattered Geography textbook; years ago. Then it was only a fibre of memory. The train that passed through the rustic town in the days of my grandfather had won her a page. So I read about Kaura Namoda and forgot her like a faint dream botched by twilight. But you see, Nnanna can you see: how fate strums the strings of time.

Dear Son,

NYSC has treated me thus. It has tilted sleeping memories, and they now sparkle like glow-worms at Nightfall. I chose Zamfara, unlike many like me. The Lagos, the Abuja; the Enugu, those states that made hearts of Prospective Corps members flutter. But I’m strange. Son, I’m weird. I chose to go to the far North; that dreadful bag of unpleasant stories. Of tumultuous people and the earthquake of explosions. But I chose Zamfara.

Dear Son,

NYSC has taught me. I have learnt great lessons. That not every Igbo is my brother and every Hausa, a foe. I have seen that the roots of our real naked selves which is humanity. Others are clothing: tribe, religion, differences, all are tattered rags won over the original, in humans’ lust for identity, belonging and voice. Son, I have learnt that the purest form of our rudimentary existence is our humanness. So, I drank Fura de Nunu with Abdullahi in the afternoon. When I cringed my face because of sourness, he laughed jarringly and I saw myself in a Fulani body.

Dear Son,

NYSC has blessed me with the riches of pain and pleasure. I have found home away from home. Kaura Namoda is my new found America. I now roam the streets of Cikin Gari bearing my straying emotions on my broadening shoulders. When I visit my friends in Sabon Gari, I yell out at the Okada, ‘Kadan Kadan Megida.’ it is not in that voice of a lost Igbo boy on the broad ways of an Hausa land. It is in the unwavering voice of a son that knows the soil. Zik and Bello will be proud.

Dear Son,

NYSC has bought love for me free of charge. I’m now a street champion of cultic significance. Yahaya chants my name like ballads sung in Fulfude. Mustapha calls me ‘kwastamar’ and gives me a whole watermelon for buying another whole watermelon on credit. Oh God! Is it not my name that I hear in the hullabaloo of gathering spectators? Now, incredibly, the villagers are wishing that I score against their team. Onitsha loves me for who I am, Kaura Namoda loves me for anything; even for turning Hausa up and down; for saying ‘Inakwana’ in the evening.

Dear Son,

NYSC is the only magic touch that will strengthen  Nigeria’s unity. It is the only cord in the great chasms of our variances. I cannot lie to you son, coming to Zamfara has changed the plot of the many stories enmeshed in the falsehood of incompleteness. Go and feel for yourself. I have met good and bad people. I have entered good and bad places. But most importantly, I have found dream crouching like a forlorn thing, waiting for my enveloping hands; for that gentle warmth preceding germination.

Dear Son,

NYSC has awakened life in me and I live again. So son, even though unborn, I have prepared stories for you. From Yakubu Gowon’s invaluable idea to Chikelu Chino’s silent fulfilment. I’m waiting for you Nnanna. To see you march with your khaki and Jungle boots, under the sun and in the rain, till another dream is born.

Your soon-to-be father,
Chikelu Chino.