Nigeria is a Very Hard Place to Study in; Turning Scholars into Hustlers from Day 1

Is life really hard? Is it just me, or do the hardships in Nigeria have nothing to do with life as a whole being hard? There's this TV series; ''Necessary Roughness''. Let me tell you a story of another series, Nigerian version; ''Unnecessary Roughness''.
My first contact with the reality of the unnecessary Nigerian Struggle was when I started writing my Senior School Certificate Exams (SSCE) Waec and Neco.

 We did our oral tests in French and English, in places that were disgusting. Those places were meant to be colleges of Study and learning. Simply put, my friend Faith told me that, if she schooled in such places, she'd literally throw up every day! 

Now the environment wasn't the only issue. I attended a very nice high school, so the rest of the written paper tests and practicals were in my school.
I didn't have much problems with the Waec practicals in Chemistry, Biology and Physics but Neco was a bit different.
We had three days each for both the Waec and Neco practicals. The first day of the Neco practical, this young lady and man walked in. There were winks and smiles around the lab. I am guessing that most guys thought this was going to be a breeze! It was Physics.
It wasn't a breeze. The next thing the lady was giving orders here and there. One minute she seemed like mother Theresa, the next she was a Margaret Thatcher wannabe. She was really a nut case. Don't know exactly what she was trying to prove. The other guy that came with her remained as passive as possible throughout those three days, and he seemed more obtuse in my opinion, as the days went by.
Physics practical, I didn't submit the time she went around to take the scripts. When I shortly came around to submit, she refused to take my script.
I begged and begged, but she refused. She put other people's scripts in one old, ugly, faded, and I would have loved to add smelling but it wasn't; just an old, ugly, faded green bag where they kept scripts, (God knows for how long they've been using that bag for Neco! They always use it year in year out) and she locked it. Physics teacher came along and begged, she still remained adamant. My friend Ovoke stood by me to give me moral support, and begged with me, but she refused.

 She eventually took my script. I wasn't even there when she did. Physics teacher kept trying to convince her till she entered the car that will take her back to the Neco office; graciously provided by the school. I would like to add here that; give and take, this iron lady in question wasn't more than 25! Yes I know! She was a small girl. I vowed to repay her back in my own way.
Next day or two we were having Chemistry. Chemistry was so easy, everyone finished in record time, and there was more than an hour left to go in the paper.
Me and Ovoke agreed; she was time conscious right? We too would be!
Ovoke didn't have the capacity to continue, but I did! Long after everybody had submitted, I didn't submit! I remained in the lab. Time wasn't up, I was through though.
Then the journey started. Just me and the lady and the other guy.
I kept moving around the lab, looking for some unknown chemicals. Then I'll go back to my seat and start whistling. When I got tired, I started resting my 'weary' head on the table! Lol. Of course the lady complained but time wasn't over, and I told her that I wasn't done! Yes, I could afford the luxury of wasting my time so I could waste her's since she was so touchy about time.
It was almost reaching the hour mark, and the lady got exasperated. She obviously knew what I was doing, she was getting tired, so was I, so she threatened not to take my script. Time wasn't up yet, and I would've continued, but I decided that the message had been passed, I had given her a dose of her own medicine. I decided to honourably bow out head held up high.
Mr Enaoroh and Miss Akande; chemistry and biology teachers were so proud of me! Lol because iron lady was also a pain in their behinds too. Mr Enaoroh bought me la Casera (a drink) and beffie (beef roll) lol I was smokn' hot that day! I can remember the lady seeing me that last day, after the chemistry, and smiling she said; ''my stubborn friend''. And indeed I was, I gave her problems too in Biology. I can't remember ever replying her; maybe I did...maybe I told her that I wasn't her friend...
P.S: Do Not Try This At School!!

The rest of the paper written tests were wanda  

kind. We weren't allowed to use calculators, even in Maths! The logic is simple; if you don't want us to use calculators, don't give us calculator questions! I realised after the Waec, people; speaking of the invigilators, will choose officialdom over human feelings. This was our future they were treating with such levity. Neco wasn't even a problem for me. The only problem was their mark scheme! I could've sworn that I deserved more than the all C's I got lol.

We are a very religious society! Yes prayer changes things! Hold your God tight here ooo! You'll hear prayer points like; ''Dear Lord, let the person marking my script, have his wife cook well for him, and put him in the right mood to mark my script.'' Gobe is when the person marking your script is a woman...a lonely, bitter, husbandless one lol.
You need a miracle for everything. No matter what you write; You need a miracle for your Jamb result to come out! Another miracle for your Waec and Neco to come out, then another miracle for your Post-Utme result to come out. The final miracle is admission. Believe you me, each stage of these chains of supernatural occurrences qualify for testimonies in David Oyedepo's 50,000 capacity church. That's how our bureaucratic juggernauts want us to feel, like it's a privilege to get admission in a government institution.
I was in a business center and this lady, the computer operator was close to tears. She had finished school four years ago. She had to look for a job as a computer operator in a business center because of the admission problem. This was her fourth year, she wrote GCE (Waec/Neco equivalent) last year. She had been trying each year, and paying. She just checked it before I walked in. ALL her papers were withheld. Next year things for her.

If you were thinking that gaining admission into a government institution was the last line of walking in the supernatural, you're dead WRONG! You'll realize how much people love God in school. Prayer warriors, pastors, evangelists, preachers. God is not an option here trust me! Some of them won't let people sleep, steady speaking in tongues into the night.-

Right from day 1 when I started my school clearance, into Uni that is, I started hustling. By 6am, there was a crowd already in unity bank. They were all pressing into the gate. We needed tellers to pay for a record file that we were going to collect from the bursary. A different place. Pushing tossing, it was not until noon that I got my teller. I paid 3,000.

The next day at the bursary, came early enough, 7am. Another mammoth crowd. Pushing and tossing. I felt miserable. I was in the middle of the crowd. Tired, hungry, thirsty weak, it was stuffy. They would sometimes push, and I'd feel the impact. On top of that, a leaking air conditioner was dripping on me. It was horrible. I didn't get my receipt until about 1.00pm. I was standing all through.

The clearance wasn't over yet! I had to go to the auditorium. Triple the amount of people I saw in the bank and bursary combined, that's the number that came to the auditorium. And it was increasing daily. For a week, I kept going to the auditorium, but couldn't clear. They couldn't manage the crowd. I was spending the whole day there with an empty stomach achieving nothing! Meanwhile, everyone coming was already given admission by the school, and had all paid 45,000 acceptance fee. The school couldn't create students' records and verify admission they'd already given. It was done in the most haphazard manner.
The second week of the clearance, there was an incident. I wasn't there, it was on Tuesday, but I was told that several students were assaulted by security and a journalist that tried to cover the event was also assaulted and detained till the next day.
The problem was that they were trying to arbitrarily clear students. It was so disorganized. Most students were coming daily just like me; some as early as 4.am but still weren't able to clear. So, many people were getting really desperate. This even led to a worse situation the next day, Wednesday.
I was present that Wednesday. I came as early as 6.am, and several other students were already there, say like 700. The gate leading into the auditorium, was locked. They didn't usually do that!
As the day dawned and got brighter, more people were coming. The students were getting really testy which was understandable. They had been coming for weeks now. Two people were in front of the gate at the other side. They refused opening it.
At some point, the gate was opened a little;students began forcing their way in, and in a few moments, the gate was pushed down! Broken! It was corrugated iron sheets used round the auditorium, and after a while, people began jumping over the sides of the now already broken gate.
In all this confusion, there was a stampede. About 10 people were trampled upon. I saw some of them. Two ladies out of breath, they were already faint. Many were injured and their clothes were in shreds. As I walked into the auditorium, by the entrance, various shoes, more than 30 pairs. The owners were evidently involved in the scuffle. Soon the ambulance came. Many people that started to feel faint or that had already fainted were carried out. Nobody had eaten so they should be very weak. So all these people, including the asthmatics were sandwiched in this small ambulance. One person was feared dead. All for clearance.
After that day, they started making the exercise online. Your name had to appear in their website, before you came to the auditorium. Tell me the block heads that didn't think of this earlier, and someone had to die, for you to use your head!

It's not by your power or your might. I've met so many people that will swear that what they were reading, wasn't what reflected in their score sheets. Truly, it was about how many people they needed to pass. If the number was too much, they downgraded the average scores, if it wasn't enough, they upgraded the scores. Ever seen when a lecturer, after marking decides that everybody passed well, and re marks to reduce the scores, because it wasn't possible, in his somehow twisted, narrow reality that everyone should pass? Same with graduating students, it's not about the average class performance, it's about the numbers they want graduating.
Just after two weeks of staying, I noticed a strand of white hair. Lectures have not even started, and I was aging! The struggle I had passed through in two weeks was more than the struggle I've faced since the beginning of the year! I had trekked miles and miles, because the road networks in campus was disorganized. I had waited in various queues more times than I could bother to remember! I had met so many stupid people, unhygienic ones; with bad breath and body odour, even girls were turned beasts, because everyone has to hustle for themselves. And lectures hadn't even started!
The Truth of the matter is, if you ever meet someone who's been through this system, and isn't an animal, respect such a person!

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