Niger

The Middle Belt eats from both halves of the country. Pounded yam and amala sit on the same menu as tuwo, and the soups follow whichever you chose.

• Pounded yam with egusi (melon seed) or ogbono.
• Tuwo shinkafa with miyan kuka or miyan taushe.
• Nsala and pepper soups, especially with river fish.
• Kilishi and suya in the evenings.
• Kunu — a light millet drink, sold cold.

Yam here is very good and very cheap by southern standards. Benue in particular is where a lot of the country's yam comes from.

The North-Central is the country's meeting point: Christian and Muslim communities in roughly equal measure, and living traditional practice alongside both. The balance changes from one local government to the next within the same state.

Camp runs both a mosque and a church with service times on the timetable. Off camp, take your cue from the community you are in rather than from the state as a whole.

Religion and ethnicity are sensitive subjects in parts of this zone, and corps members are guests. Do not take sides in a local dispute, and do not repeat one online.

Niger is one of twelve northern states that adopted a Sharia penal code from 1999. In practice this means two systems run side by side:

• Sharia courts apply to Muslims in the state.
• Non-Muslims remain under the general penal code and the federal courts, and are not tried in Sharia courts.
• Federal law — the constitution, the criminal code, road traffic law — applies to everyone regardless.

What this changes for a corps member day to day is mostly about public conduct rather than about courts. Alcohol sale and consumption are restricted or prohibited in much of the state, and where they are permitted they are confined to particular areas. Public dress is expected to be modest for both men and women. Unmarried men and women are not expected to share private accommodation, and in some places transport is segregated.

Enforcement differs between local governments and between the state capital and rural areas, and it is not something to work out by experiment. Ask your camp officials and your platoon leaders what applies where you are, follow what they tell you, and remember that as a corps member you are a guest of the state and highly visible.

This section is background, not legal advice. Anything with legal consequences goes through the NYSC state secretariat, not through an app.

Niger sits on the border between the North-West and the Middle Belt and is religiously mixed, so what applies in practice varies more between local governments here than the legal position alone would suggest.

No single indigenous language covers this zone. Tiv, Idoma, Igala, Nupe, Gbagyi, Berom, Ebira, Jukun and many more are first languages depending on where you are, and Hausa is widely used as a common language in the north of the zone.

English and Nigerian Pidgin will carry you everywhere. Learning the greeting of the community you are actually posted to is worth more here than any zone-wide phrase list — ask your platoon mates from the state, who will be pleased to be asked.

Keke napep and shared taxis run town routes at a fixed drop; motorcycle taxis are common outside the larger cities and restricted inside some of them.

Distances between towns are longer than they look and roads vary. Travel with a registered operator, start early, and arrive in daylight.