20 mistakes you should avoid during your national service
Gifts are an expression of affection from the giver to the recipient. A service year is a gift every corp member should appreciate. Our government had shown that they value their youths by deciding to take care of them for one year.
Corp members can show appreciation for this gift if they use it wisely and avoid mistakes that can take away the fun out of it. Doing that would also make the government glad.
Today we are on a third part series of the article, “20 mistakes you should avoid during your national service.” What points are in my bag? Well, let’s see.
Not Developing Oneself
With the intense competition in the job market, the foremost interest of any graduate should be to develop himself to the point where he can compete favorably to earn and keep a good job. They are many ways a corp member can do this.
There are many professional courses that are opened to corp members during their service, some of which come at a reduced cost. Corp members would do well to take advantage of these opportunities. These courses would definitely improve their CV’s and professional credibility.
One full year is too long a time to waste. Postponing it for the future might be tantamount to losing opportunities that could hit you right after your service year. So act now and act wisely.
Living a Risky Immoral Lifestyle
It is so sad to note that many corp members live their service year as if they loosened out of one cage and given 365 days free rein on sex. They basically sleep with anyone, anywhere at any time without proper restraint. There are just about many stories of corp members sleeping with one another like dogs in the corpers lodge, and some corpers sleeping with rich sugar daddies and mummies and stories like that.
While everybody has their lives to live and I can’t have a say on that, it would be very wrong for anyone to develop such a lifestyle just in the name of service year where he or she assumes he is away from the watchful eyes of family and friends.
My Local Government Inspector was telling me just some days away from that they are many corp members carrying sexually transmitted diseases without anyone knowing. That many of them die during service and corp members are told a different reason for their death.
They are still others who impregnate the young ones they teach in school and bear the wrath of the local community and NYSC disciplinary committee. There are also other corners who get impregnated and die from trying to abort it. I remember two instances like that with just 5 months when I started my service year. One of the ladies died while deceiving the hospital and us that she was having stomach problem. She deceived herself into death because while treating her for the stomach problem, her abortion attempt was damaging her and it was too late when the doctors found out. (May her soul RIP)
Not Having Savings
I cannot judge any corp member who couldn’t make savings during their service year, but it is vitally necessary to do that. (In one of my next articles I’ll write on how you can save up to N200, 000 during your service year)
Making savings can help you after service to care for yourself for a while. It is quite frustrating to start asking parents for small allowances and having a dry pocket is even more frustrating.
Night Movement
If it was in your hood, night movement would have been easy and less fearful but moving around at night in a strange land where you don’t know a soul is a bad way to live your NYSC.
Moving around at night especially in this our unsecured country, Nigeria, might expose you to a lot of hooligans and dangers. Since you don’t know the area well you might not know different possible escape routes in case of unwarranted attacks.
Even if you plan moving out at night it wouldn’t be advisable to do that just some weeks of arriving in your place of assignment. At least get to know the area well and know different routes you can escape through when danger attacks.
Avoid Pride
No one loves to keep a pride person for long as a friend. We should all endeavour to show mutual respect to other corp members. They are like the friends and family we have in our new host community. Showing pride would include not hailing fellow corp members when we meet them, insisting on our own points during discussions, showing off our possessions etc.
Another people we should avoid showing pride in is our host community. All lot of corp members are not guilty of this but have shown a great sense of oneness to their host community.
Anything contrary to this can be damaging for our stay in our new community. Some corp members come from affluent cities and families to find themselves in one backward village. This could test their sense of pride and it is vital that they learn to display love and humility as much as they can.
Thank you for reading through my article. There still more like it here in www.awajis.com/nysc Enjoy a beautiful day!