From primary to tertiary: My recollections (XLVI)

There was no love garden in Compro (why should there be one in a secondary school?) but the gangway served as the best spot for lovers’ gathering. Compro’s beauty shone best in the night. The gangway lighting was an aesthetic on its own. The gangway is long enough to accommodate as many students as possible, who had emotions and feelings to exchange. Senior students may demand respect and exercise authority over the junior ones in broad daylight but once the dusk approached, both seniors and juniors converged at the gangway to socialize without borders. Seniors threw away seniority and their authority when it was time to negotiate for affection and romance with junior students.

We had cases of HSC students showing “matrimonial interest” in form three students at the expense of their female classmates. It was a common habit to hear Senior Dotun in the morning and just Dotun in the night. This thing called romance has no respect for age or seniority, after all, “seniority is not forever”.

Immediately I got to Compro, the first thing I noticed was students’ desire for interactive conviviality, particularly in the night. They wanted to move out of their hostels to be sure they were not in gaols. In the morning they were in class till the afternoon. They moved to the hostels to observe the siesta and stayed there till night. Rather than having indoor communion within their hostels, they preferred having the love’s supper around the gangway. Knowing how much they craved for this, as soon as I became the President of Dramatic Society, I made sure I built on extant night activities like dramas, musical concerts and comedy shows.

On Friday, 4 April 1980, I decided to stage a play titled “Obaluaye” written by Wale Ogunyemi. We had several rehearsals to make sure it was a fantastic production. Some of the cast included Lamide Ìdòwú, Yetunde Durojaiye (the Vice President of the Dramatic Society), Demola Legushen, Lord Jasse, Bolade Taiwo, Funkẹ Akinleye, Rántí Oyewusi, Akin Adefuye, Wale Adepegba, Rashidat Ògúnlolá, Yinka Sorungbe, Anthony Omolayole, Eniola Shobola etc. I was the Producer. We gave the authority the impression that the play would be staged at 4pm prompt. Very funny indeed. We put “prompt” when we knew it was a decoy. We had 7pm or 8 pm in mind as our starting time. It was the appropriate time for a drama with traditional elements and setting.

No responsible deity operates in broad daylight as that would conflict with the universal belief that evil is best perpetrated in the middle of the night. Obaluaye, the small-pox god who was being celebrated in the play, led the delegation of powerful deities that should not be seen in broad daylight. They included Esu, the trickster god of faith, Ogun, god of iron and war, Sango, god of thunder and lightning, Osanyin, lord of herbs and medicine, Osun, goddess of the river osun and egungun, an ancestral spirit.

These were the gods that the school wanted me to parade in broad daylight. I made sure the stage was not ready until around 7pm. The new Head boy, Niyi Ayandokun aka (Ofege) and his deputy, Rótìmí Koleosho wanted me to move it to the following day (Saturday). I declined their suggestion on the excuse that students had already bought tickets for the show.

They told me that they wouldn’t take responsibility should the Principal decide to take disciplinary action. I asked them for a paper to sign an undertaking that I should be held responsible for any breach of peace. The students that were hanging around the gangway and its environs that night did not look to me like people looking for trouble. They were more in romantic and flenjoring mood than making any trouble. The only thing that could cause trouble was a postponement.

I refused to take the risk of postponement. When it was 7pm, I signalled to the students’to come into the hall despite the fact that the school refused to put on the generator. That wasn’t any problem. I called my “12 disciples” (school children) to go and get their lanterns. I also brought mine and also collected from some of my classmates.

The laterns were meant for the stage not the hall. I was minding my production without showing any interest in what was going on inside the “dark” hall. The audience was entitled to its privacy. But from the expressions on the faces of the students at the end of the play, I knew they had a good night under the cover of a benevolent blackout. The play ended around 11pm. I was made to understand that it had never happened in the school before that students would be watching play in the hall around that time without light. I knew that Baba Ibikunle was not one you could impress with novelty, I was not bothered about the consequence of my temerity either. Overall, I was happy that It was a gripping and riveting night with students tittering, sniggering and snickering. For the first time, I saw the children going to bed with smiles of fulfillment on their faces.

It was astonishing that a traditional play involving Esu and other weird gods which should make children shriek had no dreadful effect on the students despite the fact that the play was staged in the night. The reason was simple: most of the girls who should be doing the squawking were compassionately, comfortably and “mercifully” protected by the guys who kept their company for the two hours the play lasted.

From where I was on stage, I was hearing “eeyah, eeyah, sorry, sorry” whenever there was a frightening scene. Such comforting attention surely has its own beneficial compensation especially when the head is soothingly buried under the arms. A nice cuddling was a sufficient succour for a frightened lady. No wonder some of them, the boys especially, were demanding for more horror movies.

The following day, Saturday, 5 April, we woke up to the news that Segun Omolodun, Ahmed Oderinde and Adu Spoko who represented Ogun State in the finals of the national schools basketball competition had been selected to represent Nigeria at the African Basketball Championship taking place in Angola.

They were to play alongside Hakeem Olajuwon, Nigeria’s basketball star in the United States. This was the second time Segun Omolodun was involved in major tournaments for the school. The first outing ended in disaster. The school football team led by Adu Spoko and Bunmi Akinyemi crashed woefully at Asero Stadium as they were thrashed 6-0 by Premier College, Abeokuta. It was obvious that Omolodun was not the choice of the school football coach for the goalkeeper, he was made the reserve goalkeeper as a consolation. Both the first keeper and Omolodun collected six bountiful goals sharing the goals equally without cheating.

Though our opponents were suspected to have included in their squad members of the Abiola Babes Football Club, the school’s protest was thrown into thrash can. On Monday, I had anticipated what could happen. I had been told before then that the Principal knew everything that happened on Friday night and that he was going to talk about it on Monday during the morning assembly. Nobody knew what he had decided. I had started playing my interludes as usual after observing the one week ban. After the devotion, the Principal came to address the students as usual.

It was a routine for him to make announcements, to report offenders to the “General Assembly” and give the verdict of the “Security Council”. As he moved towards the podium, I could see the frown on his face but I was not smiling either. Before getting to my case, he spoke on other issues affecting the school and some other students. He informed us officially of Omolodun’s and Oderinde’s selection into the national basketball team.

I thought that this joyous piece of information on Omolodun and Oderinde would be a good distraction for him not to say anything about the play but not S.A Ibikunle. He hardly forgot such sensational information particularly when 4040 was the principal culprit. After the announcement on Omolodun and Oderinde, he went straight to the business of the day: Dapo Thomas again!!

The Principal cleared his throat to signify the seriousness of the next subject: “On Friday night”, he said, ” I received reports from some of the house masters and mistresses that students were still outside the hostels as at 11pm. I could hear some noise in the night right from my residence. After proper investigation, I was told that Dapo Thomas was staging a play in the dark despite the fact that I instructed the generator people not to put it on. For this audacious violation of school rules and regulations, I am inviting 4040 to my office immediately after the assembly before I take my decision. You will be briefed appropriately on the outcome of our meeting. Thank you all. You can go to your classes.”

In the Principal’s office, I was interrogated on why I staged a play in the dark. I gave my reasons but the Principal still found me and my Vice President, Yetunde Durojaiye guilty. Yetunde was accused of mobilizing the girls from the hostels. Our punishment was to cut grass for two weeks. My 12 disciples did not allow me to cut the grass except only on few occasions. They took it over and did a good job for me.

After serving the punishment, I made up my mind to get serious with my studies which I should take as my primary responsibility in the school. First, the promotion exams were few weeks away. Second, I had obtained the November/December 1980 GCE “A” levels form. I wanted to replicate what I did in my form 4 by writing the GCE “A” levels exams while still in lower six. This time around, I would only write two papers-History and Economics. There was no way I could finish all the literature texts in lower six.

Since the “A play in the Dark” episode, there was no love lost between me and the prefects. I believed they were the ones who told the Principal everything that happened on that day. They were my classmates but since they were made prefects, they had changed towards me especially the Head boy, Niyi and his Deputy, Rótìmí. I felt they were power-drunk and abusive as a result of their new appointments.

We were always having confrontations and disagreements. Those who hold the reins of power consider subservience the synonym for cooperation whereas this is not true. Subservience is in the same league with subjugation while cooperation means working together on the same wavelength through understanding. However, not all our mates agreed with my observations.

Some believed that I was also very stubborn and incorrigible. They accused me of not cooperating with the prefects and for not making their work easy for them. On 14 April 1980, whatever remained in my relationship with the prefects broke down completely and irretrievably. Anytime exams were approaching, I would lock myself up in my hostel. There would be no going out or any social engagements for me. My six school sons led by Morakinyo Akiode, Anthony Omolayole and Yinka Sorungbe would organize my food for me. Most of my mates, including the food prefect, Ayo Olusanya and all the other prefects, knew them very well and would always grant them the special privilege of allowing them to bring my food to the hostel.

This was against the school regulations though. On Sunday, April 13, 1980, my boys were bringing my food to the hostel when Rotimi Koleosho, the Deputy Head boy stopped them. He wanted to know why they were taking food to the hostel.

My boys told him “it was for Senior 40”. He collected it from them, threatened to punish them if they did not disappear from his sight. One of my boys ran to inform me in the hostel. I went straight to the dinning hall to confront him. We almost got into a physical duel but our mates stopped us from fighting. I got another ration of food and took it to the hostel. Rotimi had never been happy with me since I became the Editor-in-Chief of Gong magazine. He didn’t like the way I used to “gong” him as his friend, Dotun “Alatike” for their incessant hanky panky at the gangway every night.

He believed that as the Deputy Head boy, I should grant him executive immunity by not bugging him. Around 10 pm on that Sunday, I wrote a piece on the incident for students’ delight. It was titled: “The Adidas Orchestra”. It was pasted on the Library board where students normally read my stuff every morning before going to the hall for morning devotion. It was a very satiric piece that made students reeling with laughter.

The crowd was uncontrollable as students kept rushing to the board to read the piece. Somehow, the Head boy found his way to the board, removed it and left the place. I was in the hall playing my early morning interludes when they came to inform me that “Ofege” had removed the piece. I left the hall with rage to go and confront him but by time I got outside the hall, he had given it to the Principal……….

“In my capacity as the Principal of Comprehensive High School, Ayetoro, I hereby place Dapo Thomas aka 4040 on an indefinite suspension. Not just that. Dapo Thomas is hereby banished indefinitely from this school. Not only that. Dapo Thomas is also banished from Ayetoro indefinitely. Not just that. Dapo Thomas will be deported to Abeokuta (the address he gave us) and I am going to personally enforce the deportation today. The school has had enough of his incorrigibility. Thank you all”

*To be continued*