When 2 Old Students Meet, By Oloye ‘Lekan Alabi

I was visited today at home, by a UK-based Nigerian medical practitioner, Dr Ademola Salahudeen.

He, like my humble self, attended the reputable African Church Grammar School, (ACGS) Apata-Ganga, Ibadan,Oyo State. While my visitor belongs to the 1976-set of the ACGS, Ibadan, I belong to the 1964-set.

As Yoruba say, ‘Iwaju l’ero mb’ero.’ (The world has levels).

ACGS, Apata-Ganga, Ibadan was founded in 1961, with the motto, ‘Owuro l’ojo’ (You must set out at dawn), apology to the Nobel laureate, Professor ‘Wole Soyinka, whose second autobiography is so titled.

And talking about Professor Soyinka, an old student of the famous Government College, Apata-Ganga (GCI), Ibadan, reminds me of my fortuitous attendance of the ACGS, instead of the GCI, my first choice of a secondary, while in primary school.This is the story.

I gained admission into primary one at the Seventh-Day Adventist Primary School (SDA), Ita-Saku, Oke Foko Ibadan in January 1958.

At the SDA, I was class captain from primary two (1959) to primary four (1961); school mailboy in primary five (1962) and the school Headboy in my final year (1963).

For reasons best known to the management of the SDA Primary School, many of her pupils in primary five were weeded out or made to repeat the class, resulting in only 28 of us being promoted to primary six.

When the officials from the Western Region Ministry of Education, Ibadan, visited our school on routine inspection of the school’s preparedness for that year’s First School Leaving Certificate Examination, the number of candidates (pupils) in our class was considered “too few for the examination”. As a result, our class was ‘annuled’, and we were thus transferred (distributed is the right word) to nearby primary schools. I, with some of my classmates, was transferred to the Ansar-Ud-Deen Primary School,also in Ita Saku, Oke-Foko.

The annulment of my class also meant the loss, as it were, of my prefectship of the school.

Before the confusion, however, my parents had bought the 1963 Secondary School Common Entrance Form for me. Only one other pupil, Freeman Toghnara, from present-day Rivers State, whose father was an officer of the Nigerian Police Force based in Ibadan, had bought the form. I had filled Government College, Ibadan as my first choice and Government College, Ughelli, as the second choice.

When public announcements on radio of the dates, centres and time for the common entrance examination were made, my paternal grandmother, the late Mama Asma’u Odunola Alabi, who had registered me in SDA Primary School, Oke Foko, followed me to the school to ascertain my centre and date of the common entrance examination.

But, alas, my erstwhile headmistress, the late Mrs Esther Ola, had forgotten, in the confusion caused by the annulment of my class, to submit my form and that of Freeman!

The hell raised by Mr Toghnara, Freeman’s father, on arrival shortly after my grandmother and I got to the school, is better imagined!

Accusing Mrs Ola of inefficiency and deliberate attempt to truncate his son’s academic career, the police officer threatened to sue the thoroughly perplexed headmistress. All her appeals for forgiveness and calm by Mr Toghnara were rebuffed.

The noise and hell raised by Freeman’s father that day in 1963, were so life threatening that grandmother had to intervene and she begged Freeman’s father to take it that a split milk could not be raked back.

When he eventually calmed down, Mrs Ola, on her knees, made the instant offer of a refund of the 10s 6d cost of each form to grandmother and Mr Toghnara.

While Mr Toghnara collected the refund, grandmother declined the refund saying that Mrs Ola’s grave forgetfulness had been divinely ordered, and as such no human being could reverse it.

Since grandmother had accepted my fate, as it were, on my behalf, Mrs Ola told us of “a newly-established secondary school close to Government College, Ibadan. The new co-ed school has a disciplinarian as its principal. The school will grow to be reputable.”

Grandmother took Mrs Ola’s words and forecast and approved that rather than refund our money she should go ahead to buy the entrance form of the new, promising secondary school – the African Church Grammar School, Apata-Ganga, Ibadan. I was thus poised to attend ACGS, Apata-Ganga, Ibadan by Mrs Ola’s offer.

The rest is history. But, talk of Providence and sweet vengeance, my Aremo (eldest male child) attended the Government College, Ibadan, in 1991, making me a member of the great school’s Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) rather than being an old student of GCI.

But if you ask me, I could not have had a better secondary school education and moral leverage.

*Alabi, is the Maye Olubadan of Ibadanland

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