Tough skinned and rugged,
yet benevolent and humble hearted.
Agents of love and healing
there goes the Jesus Corper, Ajuwaya!

While we are waiting on our duties,
instruments of change and development
getting touched and touching communities;
to unity and progress, we say “Ajuwaya!”.

Hark the call of God and country;
the gospel crusading, our nation saving
and the enemy’s gates possessing.
Shout! O corper, “Ajuwaya!” to our victory.

©2010, Tee Akindele

This scheme was enacted under the military administration of General Yakubu Gowon in 1973. Just as the federal government had a plan, so God also apparently had his own plan and interest in the scheme. God spoke to Pastor G. Elton (a British missionary who lived in Nigeria for 50 years) that “a time will come when the Nigerian government will pay Nigerian youths to preach the gospel in the nooks and crannies of the country”. No doubt the prophecy referred to the NYSC programme and the mobilisation of Christian Youths to remote rural communities all over the nation.

An open door to priority peoples

About a third of Nigeria’s population remains unreached by the gospel, locked away from reach by barriers of language, remoteness and religious intolerance. Some of the most unreached regions in the country especially in the predominantly Islamic north have no contact at all with Christianity except when they meet with corpers who are usually school teachers or health workers. NYSC continues to post corpers, indiscriminate of their religion, to places where there are no known Christians or churches, only false religion, idolatry and abject poverty. We have to face it, the NYSC scheme is an open door to this priority peoples.

Undeniable fruits of corpers’ fellowships

The Nigeria Christian Corpers’ fellowship(NCCF) officially inaugurated in 1983, keyed into the prophecy of Sir Elton and adopted Rural Rugged Evangelism as the core of their vision. Every year the fellowship visits over 500 towns and villages, hardly touched by any form of development, bearing social relief and welfare materials, including volunteer medical personnel and free drugs, touching over 100,000 lives. Other corper fellowships like RCCF (Redeemed Christian Corpers’ Fellowship) also carry out similar outreaches in some states, including prison outreaches amongst other ministries.

Apart from outreaches to unreached priority groups, Corpers’ Fellowship both during the three weeks orientation camp and after, continue to help many Nigerian youths to meet with Jesus. Suffice it to say that since the inception of NYSC, tens of thousands of graduate Nigerian youths, covering a vast range of different backgrounds have believed on the gospel about Jesus Christ through one corper fellowship or the other under the umbrella of NYSC. I think that is absolutely marvellous.

Missionaries of tomorrow

Serving corpers have helped plant hundreds of churches in difficult terrain around the country. Just like short term missionary programmes in Europe and the Americas is helping many to commit themselves to full term mission work in foreign lands, the NYSC scheme has helped many of today’s full time missionaries, village evangelist and pastors answer the call to ministry and to permanently settle to serve God in the place where they concluded their youth service programme.

NYSC is un-arguably a missionary force in our land that shouldn’t be ignored, but what about Jesus Corpers as agents of development and transformation? At every point in time each year there are over 100,000 serving corpers from different disciplines and vocations all over the country. In some local government areas in the country, the only fully qualified doctors available are serving corpers. In some parts of Northern Nigeria like Sokoto where I served, well over 70% of the strength of Academic staff especially primary and secondary school teachers are corpers. I think this is the more reason why we have to take talk about proper orientation of serving Christian corpers seriously.

Little wonder, that the devil has tried to quell the continuity of NYSC severally. the scheme has major difficulties definitely, but Christians must remember that God has an interest in the programme, He has used it greatly and can continue to use it. Let’s cease praying for NYSC to be scrapped, but rather let’s be part of the solution to the problems faced by our graduate youths and NYSC. NYSC is the gospel’s open door to the unreached of our Nation.

Not long after a few of us had come around the lodge hall way where the study holds, and a brother had raised a few choruses to open the meeting, the fellowship co-ordinator, Mr Amos, walked in nervously to announce that our NYSC Area Inspector(A.I.) for our local government wanted to  see us all urgently and we had to suspend the meeting. After everyone had gathered, the A.I. handed a letter to Papa (so are NCCF co-ordinators nicknamed) to read out to our hearing.

The contents in the letter frightened apparently all of us corpers. You would know why after I have told you the rest of the story.

The A.I. narrated how he got a call from the Goronyo Local Government Chairman that morning, requesting his presence urgently. On arriving in Goronyo from Sokoto, he learnt from a disgruntled Chairman, how that the night before, a band of certain youths from within the community had ganged up to attack corpers at the corper’s lodge *phase I), Goronyo. Their grievance included that: the corps members had turned the lodge given them for resting to a place of worship, that the Christian corpers disturbed the community also with loud singing and praying.On top of all however, was that they allegedly had been inviting people from the community to worship and pray with them.

This they took to be unacceptable attempts to influence and convert their people to Christianity (Sokoto is presumably an Islamic state and traditional Christian evangelism is prohibited in most circles) for which they had made ready to unleash their anger on this group of predominantly Christian corpers, damning the consequences.

What saved the situation, was that one of them suggested to let the Chairman(being Moslem himself) know of their mission. On hearing their plans, the Chairman supposedly had to plead on behalf of the corpers, promising to caution them and restrain their religious excesses in order to appease the mob.

One of the next steps the Chairman took was to prepare a letter which he personally signed and copied to a few concerned departments including our NYSC A.I., to the effect that all religious activities within the corper’s lodges and all places of residence be stopped, and such activities be restricted to the area the community had already designated to certain churches for religious activities. The letter also stated that any lack of compliance to this directive would be dealt with as a breach of law and order.

The A.I. advised that copies of this letter be posted around all corper’s lodges as a notice.

The effect of this news on all the corpers gathered in that meeting with the A.I. at Adamu Mu’Azu’s main corper’s lodge was dramatic. I for one was confused – having heard, read and reported things like this, I had never been so close to religious violence. I sat their quietly observing the response of others. Many of the corpers didn’t bother to disguise their discouragement. As far as they were concerned God had saved their lives this once, and many didn’t see the point giving him another chance(don’t mind me).

Stories of religious crisis have become common recently in the country: 3 coppers were killed in the religious riots in Jos a few months ago. Right here in Sokoto, some time ago according to our A.I., in one of the other Local Government Areas, corpers were attacked like this for similar grievances, their building was said to have been set on fire with corps members inside. And so maybe my dear fellow corps members had good reason to be concerned for their lives. The batch B corper who sat next to me holding a big bible which he had brought for the study we were supposed to have that afternoon, quickly tucked it in his armpit. “As from today” he announced, “my bible now lives in my bag… I have only 4 months to be through with service and out of here.” The very guy who Papa asked to remind me when it was 4:00pm about bible study, was the first to leave the meeting. He made a similar comment, He didn’t wish to be seen in Goronyo with his bible again either.

I have not said anything to indict anybody. Most corps members here are folks from the south like myself where the Christian religion and Church is popular. Most of us had never been threatened with death for attending a church meeting, and so our natural first reaction was mainly one of shock.

The NCCF co-ordinator, Papa, assured the A.I. that we as Christian corps members would cooperate with the directive, but equally encouraged the Christians about the need to pray intensely about the situation.

One other believer said he saw the hand of the devil at work and was already rallying for prayer too. He added that he was ready to pick his bible and go back to town to preach; To that, I advised him to be considerate of other people he was possibly exposing to danger. I felt it was more responsible to be careful about what we did till the whole dust settled. I wonder if I gave him the right advice.

I had to leave Goronyo the next morning to be in town for some other responsibilities and to see other people, but I remembered to pray for those I left in Goronyo. Please pray along if you can and may God bless you.

I reported in the admin office on Tuesday morning to see the vice principal who after getting acquainted with me directed me to the principal of the junior school. That was discouraging for a moment as I had two things on my wish list that morning: I had wanted to be giving no other subject but computer studies to teach and I preffered to be assigned to a senior class, preferably class 5 or 6. Well, I got computer science alright, but the JSS principal wanted me to take class 1 – as at now the entire junior school had no computer teacher. Ok I didn’t object. let’s see how I cope ba?

Later that day I picked up a jerry can to fetch water from the school pump, on my way, a boy addressed me: “Mallam” he said “can I help to fetch your water?” Now down south, we use the word “Mallam” to refer to Notherners in general. Of course most of us do not actually know the meaning of the word. “Mallam” actually is the Hausa word for teacher. For the next year or so, I’m primarily a secondary school teacher in Sokoto, so anywhere you see me feel free to call me mallam.

I guess in the past few years now in retrospect, I have turned myself into something like one of those work driven folks, of which I’ve personally been afraid; they seemed to be over serious, always working at something, always distracted, always setting goals and new goals, always asking questions and seeking reasons. I made plans for every day, every week, every month and targets for every year, My next 1 year was planned, so was the year after, and also the next 3,4,5 years to probably unnecessary details. Thankfully, now this youth service year, is hardly going to be about me, my image of myself, and my lofty plans.If I had my way, I would rather be in a place where my skills, talents and personality will be more relevant and acknowledged, and an environment where I can ambitiously market myself and promote my personal agenda. But with all the surprises NYSC has already begun to rock me with, this seems to be about the best opportunity I could possibly have had to actually relax.

Though it may have looked as if I have no choice, but I may actually be beginning to imagine, that I probably was getting too stiff and un-malleable. And I have to go through with this if it will actually make me experience a breaking and loosening so that I can be more flexible and adaptable for the master’s use. I welcome the challenge to be blessed and be a blessing in this temporary new status anyhow.

Ironically, just the day before I got this news, I was discussing jokingly with another brother and closest friend, Ifemakin Olasupo, who is coincidentally serving in Sokoto with the 2008 batch C, about where I could possibly be posted to.
“What if I were posted to serve in Sokoto” I teased.
“Never, ” he jokingly protested “they would throw you to Zamfara, instead.”

Somehow I had always hoped I would be posted to the North but I never wished to go as far up as Sokoto State. Yet when it became a fact that I was to serve my homeland Nigeria, for the mandatory 1 year youth service program as a corps member in Sokoto, I didn’t bother to consider the pros and cons, I embraced it with open mindedness as where God needed me to be for the mean time for whatever reason.

Sokoto, known as, the seat of Caliphate is the Islamic capital of Islamic states in and around the country. Some of the highest daily temperatures, as well as, highest variations of daily temperature change is recorded each year here in Sokoto. For someone coming from southwest Nigeria like myself, you could only describe the climate here in Sokoto as harsh; when it is cold, it can be very cold and when it is hot it can be extremely hot.

Almost all members of my family regarded my being posted to Sokoto as bad luck or as a tragedy, they greeted me with apologies. But somehow I felt a strong sense of peace and resolve about it, I wasn’t afraid, not even of the speculated 15-20 hours journey by road ahead of me. Anyway, I must have been rather naive as I couldn’t even comprehend most of what my folks where so upset about.

I took off from Lagos on Sunday, 1st of march, around 4pm and arrived in Sokoto town about 9am on Monday the 2nd – Night journey by ‘Young Shall Grow Motors’ luxurious bus, though there was nothing luxurious about the bus ride or the bus except that we had a safe and smooth journey.

I took a motorcycle ride from the ‘Young Shall Grow’ bus terminal in Sokoto to the Redeemed Corpers Fellowship(RCF) family house at Koko road where Ifemakin was waiting for me. There was something about his smile and the way he looked me over that I didn’t understand until I went up into the family house, where after I was warmly welcomed, one gentleman adviced me to go into the bathroom to wash off 50years of age from my looks: apparently whitish fine grained settlements of the desert-like Sokoto dust had accumulated over my hair, eyelids and moustache during the motorbike ride, so that I looked like a greyed-out old man. “Welcome to Sokoto Indeed!”

The 3 weeks at orientation camp was attimes boring for me, though there were a few fun times, as I made a few new friends and joined the NCCF(National Christian Corpers Fellowship) bible study group on camp. One of the other adventurous things I did on camp was to take an HIV test (it was free and sponsored by UNICEF or so), I was hoping to encourage other guys to do same. Most of all I missed my usual quiet, lone periods of personal bible study, and also, working on my Laptop etc.

As we dipped further into the month of March, the harmattan began to give way to the heat period – O burny gosh! And then the house flies intensified in their numbers. As I write now there are about 30 house flies clustered at the coolest area of the floor carpet of the room I’m in (the walls are hotter – and I guess the flies also are not comfortable with the heat). Sometimes it gets so hot, you wander if you are going to go crazy! At such times I could drink up to a litre of water every two hours or so, even right into the middle of the night.

When I think of dusty winds, draught, heat, flies and all at the same time , it’s hard not to think about the ten plagues of Egypt – but I should shun any reason for being discouraged.

For the 3 weeks I spent at orientation I was quite healthy, up until the day before the last at camp, when I began to have digestion issues and diarrhea. Soon I became quite weak and slightly feverish (I had never been ill, not even with a fever, in the past 2 years). I couldn’t think of something wrong I ate, or whether the brief illness was a result of anxiety about what part of the state I was going to serve in. Anyway, I got better the next day.

Another morning, a few days later at my PPA(place of primary assignment) in Goronyo, I had a feeling that I had some phlegm stuck in my throat, as I coughed it out what I saw frightened me for a moment: the spittle was a large thick mass of a dark red blood clot, I felt no pain or discomfort in my throat or chest area before and after then, and I have no explanation for that too (bleeding mildly in the nose – especially in the harsh harmattan cold – is common here due to the dry weather, but an isolated incidence of coughing out blood may be another matter). The point is, never in my life have I had to trust God more for daily protection, comfort and provision.

Well, people as good looking, healthy and educated as I am live and are happy in Goronyo – it is their home. And so, if only for a year, so can I. I’m beginning to settle down in my PPA at Goronyo; I’m beginning to gradually acclimatise; my health is stabilizing; psychologically and emotionally, I’m beginning to develop an even more positive outlook towards my environment – I’m already thinking for ideas for personal CD (community development) projects for my secondary assignment even, anything to keep my mind from the discomfort and to rather search more into the question: “God do you have a program for me here in Sokoto – what would you use me to do or what life would you use me to touch.” Because in the long run, all that matters in the life of a Christian is being a light everywhere we find ourselves.

Later I would give more details about my PPA, hold this for now.