Last night I decided to write a
letter to the ‘otondos’ of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I got motivated to
write this story after a jobless friend of mine received a phone call from
another very fresh jobless friend; an otondo who had just left the NYSC camp,
she was desperately begging for N200 recharge card. So I whispered to my
friend, ‘does she realize you are jobless?’ My friend responded to her repulsively
in these words ‘you just left camp, you should be the one sending me card, and don’t
you have savings?’ Oh! Lest I forget, if you are non-Nigerian, Otondo
is a name commonly used to qualify Nigerian graduates undergoing the one year
compulsory National Youth Service Corp program, the intent of the program is to
prepare the fresh graduates for job market.
