1 Picture, Many Emotions

I always tell people that if somebody goes to a Nigerian university and resist peer negative influence, that person would never give in to being influenced negatively in the real world. In school, oppression is the order of the day. One minute you're drinking garri (cassava flakes that's considered a broke boy food) with your friend, only for you to wake up the next day to hear that your friend bought a new brand Mercedes Benz.

The oppression can be too much. Wanting to live the same life as them, you would find yourself being introduced to negative things just for money.

Many of us that were opportune to get good education, have good and bad memories from our university days. We all have pictures that we see and become happy, while there are other pictures that makes us sad when we see them.

This post is an entry to Hive Student Connect Prompt, Include Pictures (Lecture Halls, Food, Friends, Sunset on Campus. In this post, I would share a picture and tell what it means to me.

I had the opportunity to attend a College of Nursing in Abia state after a few years of trying to get admission in other schools without progress. After I was admitted, I was made the Class representative which made me become very close to a lot of my course mates.

In Nursing schools, we write an exams called Preliminary Training School (PTS) Exams. This exams is a lot to deal with. We write the exams after six months of being a pre-student nurse. During the time of being a pre-student nurse, we are asked to pay a lot for tuition acceptance fee, developmental fee e.t.c. The price of these fees vary from school to school. In my first school, It was almost a million Naira (in 2019). Currently i heard they increased the fee a lot.

After 6 months of writing this exams, candidates that failed will be expelled without refund. Those that passed will be welcomed back to the school as a student nurse. As a student nurse, if we failed promotional exams, we would be demoted for 6 months. Meaning, If we are to graduate in may 2025, our stay will be extended by 6 months. We would then graduate by November 2025.

Due to some reasons I don't know, people go to extreme lengths to sort their way into becoming a student nurse. Some pay money for it, while some probably sale their body for it. I don't know and have not seen anyone pay money for it or sale their body for it. However, many people said its true that people pay for it.

Now, lets go back to the image in my post. This image was taken when I was still a pre-student. All of us in this picture were actually close friends. We studied togethr and we had quite a good bond. However, among everyone here, only two made it to being a student nurse. Every other person were sent back to their house because they failed the exams. they were asked to try again the next year.

It was really a sad experience, but with time, I move on. Most students graduated when they were suppose to graduate but some of us did not because they were demoted. I was among the opportune people that graduated as planned, but then, as the class rep, I was pained. Its like losing a soldier.

thank you for reading.

images belongs to me