Spurred by the 85% I scored in my Biology practicals, 82% in the theory and 77% in the objective in the mock examinations marked by my “curser”, my distinction in Biology in my WAEC examinations was almost guaranteed. In my WASCE Biology practicals, I drew and labelled my fish and cockroach (the two diagrams we were asked to draw and label) with architectural efficiency. It would take the examiner the use of an optical microscope or a magnifying glass to discover any double lines in my drawings. That was what they told us: that if your drawings have double lines, you would score zero. I had four different pencils in pairs- HB, 2B, 6B and 9B. I prepared for the practicals as if I was going for a consultancy job in architecture. When I was about to enter the hall, my literature teacher, “Baba Popoola”, an elderly man of catholic righteousness, saw me with eight pencils, three rugged sharpeners that could sharpen firewood and one big eraser that was as big as a payloader. He asked: “Dapo Thomas, what do you want to do with eight pencils and this giant eraser”. I made him laugh with my reply. “Sir, somebody cursed me that I would never pass Biology. I told him I would pass Biology with distinction by the grace of GOD. Though I have prayed for the grace before leaving home, I just wanted to make sure that before his witches, no matter how hungry they are, finish eating four or five out of my 8 pencils, I would have finished all my drawings and labelling”. By the time he heard that, he just told me in Yoruba: “wole, wole” (go inside).
Some minutes after the drama with Baba Popoola at the door, my “curser” came into the hall in a strange outfit. Normally, Mr Abioye was always dressed in shirt and trousers from Monday to Friday since I knew him in Benevolent High school. This particular day, he was wearing a native attire and was going round the hall to see that everything was in order. As soon as he approached my side with his suspicious native attire, I brought out “an examination cross” which I bought at St.Anthony’s Catholic Church, Gbaja. I wanted to leave it in my pocket before, but when I saw him coming towards me in his strange native outfit, and I didn’t know where he was coming from, I brought out the cross and placed it on my table throughout the exam. I did not want to take chances at all thinking that countering his curse with “by the grace of GOD” was sufficient. I made sure I worked for the grace. Spiritual battles are not for the weaklings, they are for the vigilant. See what Mr Abioye had done to scholarship, turning the examination hall to a battlefield of spiritual warfare. With eight pencils, a giant eraser, three rugged sharpeners and an “examination cross”, GOD HIMSELF would be proud of my “nuclear armament”. If Mr Abioye believed that “ogun laye”, meaning life is a warfare, I would tell him that my best hymn was “Onward Christian Soldier…”
Awaiting result.
After writing my Biology, English Language and Literature in English papers, I didn’t give any serious attention to other papers because I had started working with a new publishing outfit called Ba’ Sango, publishers of “The Scoop”. It was owned by Femi Robinson aka “Ife Araba” of the “Village Headmaster” fame. In short, Femi Robinson himself was the Village Headmaster. The recruitment for the publication started in March 1979 but I wasn’t aware of it until May 1979. I got to know about it from my cousin, Dele Oyedele who, at that time, had resumed as the Company’s advert Manager. Through him, I got my first paid job in Ba’ Sango as a reporter in June 1979. Though I was still in school, my six passes in the 1978 GCE were considered adequate for the position of a reporter.
I made everything so easy for Senior financially when I was in school by not really bothering him with frequent financial requests. As an independent-minded little boy when I was living with Iya Ibadan, my great-grandmother, and as a former aggressive “Try Your Luck” operator with his own money in pounds, shillings, and pence. I learned how to source for money without stealing or bothering anyone. With some degree of hardwork and seriousness, I was able to attract a “Destiny helper”, Mrs Adejoke Brown. Since she got to know me as soon as I got to Senior’s house in 1974, she made sure I never lacked a dime especially when it concerned my education. She was the one that gave me part of the money for the GCE exams I wrote in 1978. She was the Managing Director of Nigerian Life and Pensions Consultants with Chief Bode Emmanuel as Chairman. I never spent my holiday staying at home. I started doing vacation job with her company since 1977.
The two responsibilities that Senior was saddled with were payment of my school fees (30 Naira per year) and buying of books. One thing with Senior was that he never joked with his children’s books. Besides, he taught us “the anatomy of inheritance” using our school books as a case study. He turned our school books to generational property. He made sure that all the books I used in Form 1 were successfully inherited by Kunle, my immediate younger brother. He also ensured that the same books Kunle inherited from me were bequeathed to Gboyega, the number three of the six boys Senior had. The chain of inheritance continued with Niyi possessing his own possessions, too. Yewande, the head girl of the three girls in the family, was getting ready for her own turn when WAEC put an end to the lineage’s “inheritance tradition” by announcing new textbooks for most of its subjects. And Senior was devastated. But for the period this inheritance arrangement was on, Senior made sure that all the books enjoyed material longevity by wrapping them with old calendars and starch before arranging them neatly in a very big “Ajase boxmanteau” during vacation. Seeing the assiduity with which our father kept and nourished our books, we, the children, also protected the books, including our exercise books, from the claws of some mischievous boys whose hands were never at rest and were always looking for materials for their simulated canoes, especially during the rainy season. Funny enough, they would not ride the canoes after “construction”. They would use them for speed competition in any of the Street gutters. They would throw them inside the gutter from one end, then speed to the other end of the gutter to see whose own arrived first.
I officially resumed work at The Scoop on 1 June 1979. I joined people like Tope Awe (Editor), Dele Oyedele (Advert Manager) Joseph Agboola Afọlábí aka Ssygala, Kayode Ìdòwú (Production Duo), Dejó Odeyinka (News Editor) Charles Assam (Entertainment Editor), Segun Ojewuyi (Arts Correspondent). I was the only reporter in the Newsroom servicing all the desks. The first thing I did was to join the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN), Lagos State branch to be sure that, at least, I would watch free matches at both the National Stadium and Onikan Stadium. My house and my office (Ayinde Giwa, Masha) were very close to the National Stadium. It was in SWAN I met people like Ayo Ositelu aka Arena, Joe Audu, Muyiwa Daniel, Yemi Ojo and Hakeem Sunmonu-Ajibade.
Though I had charted my academic plan in a way that I would not veer off the course, I almost did when I came into journalism. According to my earlier plan, I would go for my Advanced levels at Baptist Academy, Obanikoro (Baptacad), or Igbobi College, Igbobi, Fadeyi. From there, I would go straight to the University. I copied this plan from my cousin, Tunde Thomas who was my mentor in a way. After his O levels at Apostolic Grammar School, Ketu, he did his “A” levels at Baptacad and was waiting for direct entry admission into the University of Ife, Ile-Ife, where he planned to study Law. He had told me to follow his academic path by reading Law. My little cousin, Alero Atake whose father, Justice Atake was a Judge in Bendel State also wanted me to read Law. The influence of these two relatives was so overwhelming because we were always reading and discussing academic matters together.
Somehow, my interest in drama was rekindled in Ba’Sango. I got so close to Segun Ojewuyi, a very cerebral guy who was in the Creative Arts Department, University of Lagos, Akoka. The two of us were the youngest in the Newsroom. Segun Ojewuyi was doing a Diploma course in Cultural Studies and dramatic arts. He was very good in performing arts. In the course of our friendship, I fell in love again with theatre arts. Already, Femi Robinson, Dele Oyedele and Alan Aroyewun were all part of the Village Headmaster crew as actors, writers and make-up artist. Robinson was the Village Headmaster, Dele Oyedele and Alan Aroyewun were script writers for the series while Peju Aroyewun, Alan’s wife, was the series make-up artist. By the way, Alan Aroyewun is my mother’s younger brother. We first met in 1972 when their father died but we lost contact again. Interestingly, I was following his activities on telly and in ” Lagos Weekend” where he used to write a titillating column every Friday on “Segilola” under the pseudonym “Alankoh”.
In Ba’ Sango, we worked so hard to make “The Scoop”, the most successful tabloid in Nigeria. Femi Robinson was fortunate to assemble such talented personnel in journalism. Almost all the guys in the editorial department were fresh graduates of Nigeria Institute of Journalism (NIJ). That was the epicentre of journalism training in Nigeria. Segun Ojewuyi was not one of them, but his dissection of the theatre and its components in the arts pages was always very robust and pedantic. At 19, he wrote seminal reviews and previews on arts with an egregious brilliance that is common with geniuses. He was a superlative enigma of rare pedigree. His theoretical dilation was complimented by the expressive artistic dexterity of Ssygala and Kay who provided ethereal illustrations for all our political symbolisms and every shambolic metaphor that Nigeria typifies. Our maiden edition carried an exclusive interview with Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. The interview was explosive in content, substance and context, with Fela baptizing Olusegun Obasanjo, the military Head of State, with fire, brimstone and limestone.
Before the interview, which was secured by Tope Awe, an ardent Fela’s faithful, we were made to sign an undertaking that the interview would not be edited or abridged in any form. Having been assured by Femi Robinson, a man Fela respected, Fela bared it all in the interview, bashing and pummeling Obasanjo from different directions. Unarguably, it was obvious that Fela’s vehemence was provoked by the burning of “Kalakuta Republic” and the killing of his mother by an “Unknown Soldier” on 18 February 1977. Mrs Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti who mobilized Ẹgba women against the then Alake of Egbaland, Sir Ladapo Ademola during the Ẹgba riot of 1948, was thrown to the ground floor from the window of the storey building. Though she didn’t die immediately, Fela’s mum never recovered from the injuries she sustained in the incident. Angered by what he perceived as an act of injustice and wickedness against his family, especially his mother, Fela released an iconoclastic album titled “Unknown Soldier” in which he satirized the outcome of the investigation into the Kalakuta inferno and the killing of his mother with an emotional rendition of “Dem kill my Mama”. Fela also lambasted Obasanjo for deploying soldiers to secondary schools all over the country in 1977-78 academic year, to “instil discipline” in the students. Fela protested against this policy by withdrawing his son, Femi Anikulapo-Kuti from his school, Baptist Academy. Another policy of Obasanjo that Fela condemned in the interview was “Austerity Measures”.
Obasanjọ adopted these measures in the 1976 budget in order to reduce public expenditure but shockingly, the same Obasanjo’s government took a $1 billion loan from a syndicate of banks with the support of the World Bank and IMF. In two years of Obasanjo’s government, Nigeria borrowed a further $4.983 million. Yet, the economy was overheated with a 34% inflation rate. Fela really demonized Obasanjo in the interview. It was a wise marketing decision that we took when we decided to do the launching of the tabloid at Fela’s new shrine on Pepple Street, Ikeja. No single copy followed us back to the office out of the hundreds that we took to the Shrine. It was a sellout. Ironically, “The Scoop” died for lack of funds. All our appeals to Femi Robinson to partner with MKO Abiola, who had shown interest in the paper, failed because of Robinson’s fear that Abiola would hijack it from him. A wonderful idea was thus aborted in the theatre of ego. In August 1979, I had to leave the group to face my school.
Besieged by a cocktail of admirable professional options like Law, Mass Communication, Drama/Theatre Arts, I began to see myself as a big man that the sky could not limit his growth. My head was full of ideas but so many things evoked my fears. Anytime I saw a lawyer dragging his feet in the streets with “sálúbàtà” (worn-out shoes) and walking to the bus stop to board molue, I would tell myself, GOD forbid!
Also, whenever I attended any journalists forum and I saw reporters and editors cutting one single corn into five pieces and sharing the pieces with communal felicitation, I would shake my head in apparent rejection. The very first time I saw Ola Omonitan aka Ajimajasan struggling for bus at Barracks bus stop, I wept for wasted stardom. Though people were hailing him as he was entering the bus, who knew if the hailing was not a veiled mockery of a star whose life was not shining. Sometimes, the glamour we see in stars are, most times, a galaxy of farce. Then I started thinking. Men of same profession may split destinies regardless of professional affinity. The lawyer chasing molue may not be a good advert for the profession but his good conduct can be an epitome for the regality of the occupation. The journalists sharing corn may not confer any attraction on the job but the fraternity of the job is the source of their joy. Ajimajasan may be struggling for bus but his integrity in the career will forever be a plus and not a barrier. I told myself that if I should allow one side of life to determine my life, I may end up learning the other side of life at the expiration of my life.
The News was all over that WAEC had released the results of its 1979 May/June Exams.
To be continued
