Service Year Boulevard 112

A Service year Boulevard details and summarizes what happened from when you get your call up letter to when you are lvining your place of primary assignment.

PSA: This is a long read.

When I went to school to get my call up letter with the hope of getting Lagos as I had worked it, imagine the utter shock of seeing Brono on my letter. I was devastated as I was currently doing a holiday job with one of the Big 4 audit firm and hoped to continue there as a corper.

 I cried for days, my family kept telling me ‘mind over matter’, ‘brace up and face the world’. I couldn’t wrap my head around the positivity, what is there to have mind over matter *roll eyes*.


Before leaving Lagos, I met up with school mates (3 other ladies) going to Brono as well and we all flew down together, it was a long flight, 4hrs in total as there were stop overs in Abuja and Yobe. On getting to the camp, it was late, and we were exhausted. We did the whole shenanigans of getting settled in and we all stuck together throughout camp.

I was a very LAZY copper to the point I was known by all, both corpers and soldiers. There was an incident that happened, on a sunny afternoon (God forbid you catch lazy me in the sun), the camp commandant himself was the one that did rounds of chasing and punishing people that stayed back in the dorms. 

Everybody thought, finally she will be punished today as the commandment was not looking at any doctor’s report except for the one issued by the camp’s CMD. I had a doctor’s report from Lagos which was to serve as my basis for redeployment back to Lagos and I used to show the soldiers why I couldn’t stay in the sun, luckily for me on this day I had a letter from the CMD to allow me stay in the dorm as I was purging and I needed easy access to the toilet. 

The CMD’s letter saved me from punishment and the commandant ordered me to go stay in the clinic, so you can imagine the shock on people’s faces when I came out of the dorm and swayed to the clinic in front of the parade rather than kneeling down like the other offenders.

Fast forward to the day of posting, I checked through the redeployment list and my name was absent, oh boy I cried and cried and remembered all the days of faffing and the soldiers threatening that I would be posted to Mallam Fatori – (a PPA where you have to get on a camel to complete your journey there, it was that far, part of the gist then was that a particular street there had Cameroon on a side and Nigeria on another side). One of us got her redeployment, the other 2 had already worked their posting to the capital city – MMC. 

Foolish me, I didn’t work anything as I was super sure I was getting redeployed. Finally, I summoned up courage and went to get my letter, I was posted to a local government, 30mins away from the capital city – Damboa (God bless this place, it has been destroyed by the insurgent circa 2012/2013).

I got to the PPA with the other corpers and I knew I was in trouble, it was a proper village with mud huts, thankfully there was electricity and it was constant. I settled into my new home for next few weeks (I still believed my redeployment will sail through) and made up my mind to try not to be miserable. My mum called from her place of sojourn (she was not in the country then) and told me to open my eyes to opportunities, I was like; “Mum! Have you been here before, this is a desert what work opportunity would I get in a village apart from teaching students that would tell you “Ba turanchi” meaning I do not understand English”. 

She said “no, you can meet a nice boyfriend there”. “Huh! Mummy! This is the least of my concern I beg, my focus in on my career and how I can get it back on track by redeploying and going to my former place of work. Boyfriend business is far from my head now” (I had just broken up with my boyfriend of 4years about 6months to camp). Anyways, it seems the universe was in alignment with my mum.


Back then, I used to play a game in my head whenever I met a new guy, I always wondered if this will be my future husband, don’t blame me, blame it on the breakup trauma I was suffering from, lol! The call from my mum brought this game back to my subconscious on a night when I met Odafe, his gist had preceded him in the female corper’s lodge as he was a fresh fish from Lagos. Going by the girls’ taste in men (they were dating corporals, nothing wrong but not my preference), I didn’t pay attention to the hype of the ‘new guy’ – Odafe, I felt here goes exaggerations again. 

Few days later I was at the boy’s lodge playing scrabble when a tall, dark and handsome guy towered in the doorway of the room I was in, my little game in my head came to mind and I hurriedly brushed it away as the first thing he said pissed me off. I was like a local champion of sort regarding scrabble matters as nobody used to challenge words I played, imagine the horror that night when Odafe opened his mouth and challenged a word I had play before he came in, “who played this word”, I rolled my eyes and replied, “I did, why?”, let’s just say that ended my reign as local champion, we exchanged banters and I later found out he was the “Odafe, the Lagos boy”. Long story short, we had several mild run ins over the next few days, little did I know it was the mutual chemistry we both felt that we were fighting. Eventually, we gave up and allowed fate take over. We bonded, had similar interests in topics, he was different from others, we could both relate to things, gist, situation and basically saw things from same perspective, he was very intelligent, still is (I find that very sexy in a man).

To cut the already long story short, Odafe asked me out, even though I had fallen for him, I stalled and told him, “this place is like Big Brother House, let’s get back to Lagos where we both reside and see if we still feel the same way” (I wanted to be sure there was no girlfriend back in Lagos). About 6 weeks after meeting Odafe, my redeployment clicked and we both went back to Lagos, He had been waiting for me as his hustle was waiting for him in Lagos, (he shuttled between Lagos and Brono during the service year). After service year, we both got a job in the same place of work, a multinational company, we got married 3 years after service and have been happily married for 8years and counting.

Looking back, Brono was a blessing to me in all ramification, apart from meeting my husband and best friend, I needed to see life from a flip side, and I am thankful for that experience.



N.B: I didn’t get back my holiday job, I spent the reminder of my service year in my father’s house, nurturing our budding relationship whilst job hunting for both of us for jobs after service year.

This doesnt feel like a service year story..........

Please where is Brono?