MY ADMISSION
It was on a Friday Evening after a Church house fellowship precisely 5:30pm, that I told my mom I wanted to dash to the cafe to check my admission status, Since UNIBEN just released the first batch of the Admission list. She almost didn't want to allow me go due to what Happened when post UTME Results were released. I spent six to seven hours on that trip. So she felt it was one of my normal ways to get out of the prison we called house (trust Nigerian parents to always deliver). She wasn't optimistic that I would be admitted owing to fact that I had written the UTME three times without any positive result.
I knew I would be admitted. This belief was so strong because quit a good number did not pass the UTME and we were relatively few during the Post UTME examinations compared to the previous years ( yes I know this because I was there the previous year). "If UNIBEN doesn't give me admission this year, I will sue that school", I murmured to myself as I was entering my password to get access to the internet. I didn't go straight to the UNIBEN portal as I was not too anxious. I decided to surf through the internet a little. This I did for few minutes before I finally headed for the mission that took me out of my father's house. I expected to see it big like that of NTI (I had done a NCE (DLS) programme through NTI). Their admission letter was very big and bold as in ADMITTED, CONGRATULATIONS! CONGRATULATIONS!! CONGRATULATIONS!!! Instead what i saw was a tiny "Admitted". Wait is this it? Is that all? Just "Admitted"? Thinking there was a mistake somewhere, I called the cafe attendant to help confirm what I was seeing. This he did by giving me a handshake.
I can't remember if I logged out. All I could remember was I printed, paid and zoomed off. In about five minutes, I was already in my house. The distance of the cafe from.my house is about 15-20 minutes depending on how fast you could cross the ever busy Express road. I don't think I can ever remember how I crossed. But all I know is that I got the house in about 5 minutes.
My mummy wouldn't have believed I had been to the cafe, and came back admitted, but forthe print out. Because the space of time was too short for me to have gone to the cafe and come back. She congratulated me and my favourite food was coincidentally being prepared so she added plantains to it. I know you would be wondering what my favourite food is; RICE AND BEANS!
From that time I started telling people that I am a student of UNIBEN. I started feeling big and started being a serious person. Word got out to the children in my neighborhood and in no time they started calling me "brother". I also noticed my mum no longer monitored me like a primary six pupil. Though she now emphasized "Read your book ooo, University is not for the suckling". I was too anxious to go to school, I always imagined what my first lecture would look like.
UNIBEN has always been the school of my dream as a younger person. The beautiful gate and structure therein were fascinating. The colours that make the gate unique were adorable. If not for anything else the purple colour and flowers at the gate caught my attention each time we made a journey past the school either when going to visit Grandma at Ekpoma or when returning to Lagos. Oh! I had loved to be a Student of UNIBEN.
Funny enough, more than six months after I was admitted, I did not pass through UNIBEN gate because ASSU refused to end the aging strike. Annoying frustrating and dejected was the situation. Like any other fresher, I became a friend of the media. I followed all the negotiations between ASSU and the federal government on Facebook and Twitter, listening to all the major news of the day. Sometimes I even saved to buy Newspaper. This I did once in three days. The Nigerian Tribune being my favourite had a fascinating way of relaying the issues about the strike. Finally the strike was called of in December and all schools refused to resume immediately, because of the Christmas and New year celebrations. This mattered a lot to me as all.i wanted was the school to resume as soon as possible.
Finally school resumed and fresher's were asked to hold on, because staylites had to finish their examinations that lasted till March. I was becoming really impatient now until I got the information that clearance has started.
The first day of clearance wasn't easy. The auditorium was filled to the brim. But sadly, it was such that there was even a stampede that led to the demise of a fellow soldier who was asthmatic. Anyway, away with the stampede issues because I am still a soldier in UNIBEN. I don't want to be court marshaled lol
The anxiety of being a student of UNIBEN cost me a lot such that I wouldn't want my junior soldiers to pass through the trauma I went through. There are a lot of mistakes that I and some other students made. There are things I would have done differently if was exposed earlier. No matter how smart you think you are, UNIBEN just have a way of reducing you to a BLOODY FRESHER!
Anticipate the next part!
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