DEAR DIARY | FRIDAY 20TH OCTOBER 2023

Hello everyone, I trust y’all doing well. Today has been a very nice and sunny day for me over here. It has been calm, and less stressful.

I woke up the sound of security alarm raised by someone in the neighborhood at around 4:00 am. I felt too tired to get up from bed, but when others in the lodge rushed outside with machetes and woods, I quickly joined them.

The alarm was about thieves that were trying to break-in into a shop. When we got to the scene, we realized the thieves had ran away. We had also been experiencing break-ins in our lodge and cooking items and foods have been stolen. Cos of this, we had also for about 3 weeks now doing security lookouts in turns in the lodge.

Upon reaching the scene, we saw other persons that had come out due to the alarm raised by the neighbor. In his narration, he said they were 4 in number. Lest I forget, he is a local security personnel. When he heard the sound of some noise coming from some distance, he had to take a stroll down there and then he flashed his torchlight towards them and asked who they were from a distance. They responded “if you come close, we will machete you” he said.

When he heard this, and with their number, he had to raise the alarm and so other came out. Immediately he raised the alarm, the thieves ran away, leaving the shop they had already opened.

They were struggling to carry the fridge in the shop, and they had some kind of key which they had used to open the shop. How they got access to the key is still unknown, and we think it might be a master key or something. Some said they may have had access to the original key one time they might have gone to the shop in disguise to purchase something and might have used soap to clone it.

After spending about 30mins, we all returned back to our lodge. I went back to bed and then woke up a bit later than usual. I was supposed to fetch water early this morning, but I was tired and still sleepy so I couldn’t get up to go and fetch water. I went back to bed while my roommates fetched the water.

I woke up at about 7:00am and stretched for a while. I later got prepared for our CDS activity for today which is another Friday of the week. I took my bath, and then I had some snacks for breakfast.

The CDS started at 9:00am and the activities for today were sensitization on the use of hard drugs and misuse of drugs. This sensitization was given by one of our fellow corp member whom is generally called ‘Prof’ in the lodge. He elaborately gave reasons why drug abuse is very harmful to the system.

He gave instances of the excessive intake of alcohol and also smoking. He said smoking is very bad and causes lots of kidney and liver deceases. It is very harmful to the health and clearly stated that “smokers are liable to die young” which happens to be the same inscription on the packets of these cigarettes people purchase.

He also said that taking alcohols isn’t totally bad, but it should be with moderation. People take alcohol in excess dally and don’t even care about what it does to the body. He further said one way to help oneself is by limiting the in-take of alcohol and other harmful substances. He finally stressed that taking of drugs should be by prescription of a doctor so as not to misuse it and cause danger to the body.

The next lecture/sensitization we had was about the INEC election coming up in a few weeks. Corp members that have interest in partaking in the event especially, were sensitized on how to use the devices and tools they would be using to conduct the election.

This sensitization was given by one of our fellow corp member which also happen to be my roommate, Hassan Afolabi. He gave us so much information concerning the tool, documents, devices, etc. we would be given to conduct the upcoming election.

He explained what the BIVAS (Bimodal Voting Accreditation System) is, and how to use it. He also made mention that when we get to the polling units, first thing to do is to tear off every campaign materials in the unit where they the officials will be sitting to conduct the election. The reason is because so that it doesn’t look like that polling unit is only in support of that particular campaigning party.

He further talked about the security of the corpers that will be manning the election at their different polling units. He said clearly that they should not try to be bias or act arrogantly to the people. If they are threatened to change any report, they should just do as they are told, but secretly give an indication so that when they finally go to give report at the secretariat after the election, they can tell them that they were threatened to change results during the election in their polling units. With this, the result for that polling unit will be cancelled, he said.

These and other things he stated, and then finally he said that there will also be a physical training which the INEC officials will do for all those that have shown interest and registered to conduct the election in the state. That way, when the day has been fixed, messages will be sent across so that those interested can go for the training and also have practical sessions.

I know you may be curious to know if I am also interested in conducting this Bayelsa Governorship election coming up. Well, my simple and short answer is NO, I AM NOT INTERESTED. I don’t partake in elections in the country and this is because no matter how citizens of the country cst their votes, there’s always this manipulation of results to make the choice of the people lost the election. In addition to that, the way election is conducted in most parts of the country is kind of always bloody, so for safety reasons also, I do not partake in elections.

Just before we closed for today’s CDS, a new CDS president was elected and I must say that he was really shocked and surprised how it got to be him. Thereafter, we sang the NYSC anthem, and then closed formally.

I then went to a restaurant and had lunch, came back to my lodge and had a nap. I woke up later in the evening, sat outside for a few minutes and chatted with friends. Later on, I had dinner and came back into my room and watched some TikTok videos on my phone.

In summary, my day was well spent, and I acquired a lot of knowledge. Thank you for taking your time to read my diary. I really appreciate your continuous support.