THE NIGERIAN UNIVERSITY EXPERIENCE: FRESHMEN

 

A good number of people in Nigeria and the globe must have seen the movie "Coming to America". Now if you haven't, the movie was basically about a young African prince who left the palace to experience the world which was "The US of A". The young prince imagined America to be the land flowing with milk and honey and had so much expectations in line with what he might've heard about the country. He ended up in a trash apartment in Brooklyn, New York.

This is what happens to most Nigerian youths when preparing to go to university although, not exactly as in Coming to America.

Securing a spot in one of Nigeria's prestigious government-owned universities is like going to war with the legions of Satan. Many who manage to overcome those "seven mountains" look forward to leaving home and starting a new life for however long their course duration requires. OK. The mandem go shopping, pack their bags, try to secure accommodation somewhere and OFF! they abscond. They must have heard stories of how horrid and jagbajantis the system is and choose to be in denial because "It can't be that bad?" COOL

So mandem get to campus and everyone's nice for the orientation week. The hostels are an apology but they choose to ignore the fact and hope that they'll get used to it. The rooms are not fully occupied yet. The queues at the tap are borderline bearable. The hostels smell like gutter and a refuse dump pureed in a blender. It's still in the realm of acceptable.

Then there's admissions clearance, where the gatekeepers of hell work. Papers are everywhere. The photocopy business owners make the sales of the year. Again papers are everywhere. The students walk back and forth like insane freaks all over campus, trying to make the papers complete. Some will be flung at them by the angry men and women, who do not give the slightest shit about your sorry ass admission and would go home whenever the fuck they want because you're not the boss of them. COME BACK TOMORROW!!!

Classes start and it's a WHAT THE HELL moment for all. It seems like the university fully admitted a local government area and are trying to fit them like overflowing clothes into a suitcase. The classes are hot, the seating is limited and they probably will not hear their lecturers unless they decide to use a mic. They read the notes like a bedtime story and throw a fit if you ask them to repeat themselves. Some schools have an interactive board for learning used by few and disregarded by many that render it incognito.

Then the "Are you in the lord's army" team shows up and battle to get the vulnerable and clueless freshmen who probably have no religious or moral compass to guide them. Fellowships with the weirdest names surface,with scouts who collect their details and irritate them with endless calls and texts like the jagbajantis Nigerian network providers. Some join, some don't.

University then becomes a mentally challenging exercise that no one prepared them for. There's endless hours of class and an obscene number of classes they're to take each semester. The lackluster lecturers who show up once in a lunar eclipse, make everything worse. The few who show up to class either stay longer than required or perform the monologue script they write before each lecture. They should do theatre, their monologues deserve an Oscar or BAFTA.

There are a few though, who have the perfect ideas for learning in their heads and actually bring them into reality. They teach, guide and make their classes a "give and take" instead of a disastrous monologue.

It's mid-semester. They now actually realise what a stupid decision they took to come to university.

It's actually not jagbajantis as they say, it's a total ASHAKASA (SEE EBONYLIFE TV'S FIFTY FOR TRANSLATION).

 More people have been admitted. The classrooms have now become a burning furnace. The hostels are now literally one million people per square foot. The lines at the tap resemble the lines in front of God on judgement day. There's different people from all spheres of life, madness, home training, sexual orientation and fetishes, eating habits, hygiene habits, English, accents and level of common sense. Money parts from their bank accounts like the two walls of the Red Sea's waters.They find out that common sense is an alarmingly diminishing factor on campus where it's supposed to be at it's highest. Smartphone operating systems should seriously integrate common sense into their application stores. Many do need an upgrade or a fresh download.

Exam season comes whilst some still think it's a myth. Security on campus is at it's "highest low". Robberies, stabbings, sometimes beheading and in extreme cases, rape, start to escalate . Many start to go to "night classes" and deceive themselves till the first ray of the sunrise. The few who actually stay up to read are ever so confident and ready for the exams. Not bad at all. Church attendance on Sundays and Wednesdays shoot through the roof. God is folding his arms and shaking his head along with the angels."The joke is on them", he shrugs.

Results come out and so many are in for a rude awakening.There's mysterious failures, mysterious successes and mysteriously missing exam scripts. Many now add the word "Carry over"to their vocabulary. Church attendance drops again. Dropping out looks like a neon sign for some; some go home happy; some resolve to do things that you will find out in second year; some decide to switch courses and some decide to "What doesn't kill makes you stronger" to their lives.

University suddenly becomes a stubborn rash and they look forward to leaving although, fully knowing that there might be external and internal factors (ENEMIES FROM WITHIN AND WITHOUT) that might extend their programme a year, two or infinity. They hope for a better second year at least.

Also, they find out that Miss goody two shoes of the fellowship's choir and the main student pastor are shagging their brains out every weekend. THEY CANCEL CHURCH AS WELL. THEY CAN'T BE UNEQUALLY YOKED WITH SINNERS.💖💖💖💖

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. ANY RESEMBLANCE TO ANY UNIVERSITY, DEAD OR ALIVE IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL. EVERYTHING PORTRAYED IN THIS BLOG POST IS A PRODUCT OF THE WRITER'S IMAGINATION AND ARE USED FICTITIOUSLY.

"JAGBAJANTIS" WHICH WAS FREQUENTLY USED IN THIS POST IS A DEROGATORY TERM IN NIGERIAN ENGLISH CREOLE. IT MOSTLY MEANS ABSOLUTE IDIOCY, STUPIDITY, DISGUST, MESS AND DISGUST, DEPENDING ON YOUR REASON FOR USAGE. USAGE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK.

ASHAKASHA: JUST SEE THE MOVIE. IT'S ON NETFLIX.