CAMPUS CONNECT WEEK6 : TITLE- My first day on campus by hazmat

MY FIRST DAY ON CAMPUS

My name is ABDULAHI QUDUS, and I attended the Federal University of technology Minna. I was born and I've spent almost all my life living in Lagos State which is in the western part and also the commercial hub of Nigeria(na Lagos life dey happen). So the decision to go school in minna, Niger state which is in the northern part was mostly influenced by my parents because of the rate of cultism in the west.

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My first time on campus was when I went for POST UTME exams, I am from Kogi another state in a region known as middle belt (lol no jokes we were literally in the middle) and coincidentally around that time an Uncle was getting married so alot of family in Lagos were traveling down to kogi for the wedding. I had a two week window in between preparing for the exam and enjoying the wedding and felt I had all the time in the world. You know na, as a Lagos boy I was going to show them I had arrived so that was how I spent the whole two weeks cruising around with my cousins and enjoying the scenery.

By the time I realized I wasn't prepared, it was time to travel down to Minna. An Uncle volunteered to take me there since he had friends in Minna and it was also my first time traveling to those areas. Now there are different routes that will get you to Minna, but I advise taking the Abuja route if you're traveling from Kogi. Initially that was the planned route from Okene in kogi state to Abuja FCT and then down to Minna, naso one of my aunt's come chook mouth o ( Aunty Fayeeza my God go fight my battles oo). She advised us taking the lokoja road ( lokoja is a part of kogi state and still on the way to abuja).

DOWN TO MINNA
We left Okene a day before the exams as early as 6am just because of traffic and by 8am we were in lokoja already, everything was looking good till we got to the park for Minna transportation and saw literally no passengers in the bus (ahh I remember the evil eye my uncle use look me). Turns out a lot of people prefer going to abuja directly and then down to Minna, instead of stopping at lokoja first which was the reason why there were no passengers. At first we were contemplating waiting, but when we heard the price it was much higher than if we had gone with the initial plan (the insults I received that day en, all this our African uncles God is watching you).

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So we changed plans again, it was down to Abuja next. All that was going through my mind was how I was going to make time to at least read something before exams the next day. We got to Minna around 4pm, a journey that should've been just six hours had taken us ten hours, mhen I was stressed out ( na who dey alive dey collect Bachelor's degree jare).
Immediately we got to my Uncles friend apartment, I first go bath then perform prayers then chop and crash in that order. God is in control jare was the thought on my mind as I fell asleep.

EXAM DAY

The D day was finally here, I woke very early and got set as my exam was for 8am. My Uncles friend was a staff in the university so moving around was a lot faster , my first experience was with the bus we entered which I later got to know was known as the PRISON BREAK, it's this very big bus for students but extremely slow ( ijapa the tortoise fast pass that thing aswear). I jus dey reason say when we go reach this campus like this.

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At last we got to the main campus in Gidan kwano, my first thought was that so this is how a university environment looks like. Buildings were all looking alike mostly because they were in the same colors. The only different building I spotted easily was one in white with SENATE BUILDING boldly written in front ( u no need juju to know say na there things dey happen). So to my surprise my Uncle said he wanted to see someone in one of the offices there and he gave me the room number for the office for when I finished exams. I joined my colleagues and walked down to a place known as the E-center where we were to write the exam.

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Thats where the whole wahala started o, I was told the jamb result I brought was printed on black and white but only colored printout was accepted. I started walking around looking for a place to printout the jamb result and buy a scratch card to access the site, turns out I wasn't the only one with the same issue after spending hours without any positive outcome I left the place. Like our forefathers say, if you can't go forward at least you go backward. I had to locate my uncle in Senate building and explain everything, my brethrens I lost like two times on the way there as I was circling the same area looking for the Senate building. After finally locating it the security guard at the entrance use question finish me that day en ( my uncle still dey para for me say I too dey waste time). Someone in the office took my details and went to printout the result for me.

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With all the stress I had gone through, I just went to the E-center and clicked whatever I could on the computer. By 12pm I was finally done with my exam, my uncle told me to take a walk around the school and familiarize myself with it's surrounding. First thing that caught my attention was the freedom, there was nobody to tell you what to do or how to do it. Beautiful laides were everywhere (omo I don't mind school if ladies choke like this o) I wanted to try my luck with a few but I guess I was feeling a bit shy because I knew it was obvious to others that I wasn't a student there yet. After the whole tour I went back to my uncle and he decided we were returning back to Kogi that same day (ladies and gentlemen abeg who I offend na).

We went to the park and got a bus going to Abuja and by 5pm we were there and the last phase was down to Okene from Abuja. We got home around 10pm with almost the whole family waiting for us. I remember going to sleep that day thinking "I can't wait to be an undergraduate, at least because of the beautiful ladies".