Remembering O.B.H.S.

Today, I remember OBHS. My mind is having a flashback to the good old days when I was in Oyun Baptist High School.

Created in the early 1970s by the Baptist Missionary but ironically named after the Oyun River in Ijagbo, Kwara State in Nigeria, the school was like a toddler in age when it admitted its third set of students of which I belonged. As young as the school was though, it drew students from among all religious groups and from almost all the ethnic groups in the nation. I, for instance, was born and raised in Lagos and was about getting into a more popular and well-established CMS Grammar School in Lagos when OBHS and the adventure of attending a village school beckoned.

As my mind went back in time this morning, I remembered some old classmates with funny aliases. It's quite funny how some people will label themselves with aliases while they are young and those nicknames will stick with them forever. For instance, there were some of my old classmates whose real names I have only recently got to know while there are a whole lot of them whose real names I still don't know up till this moment.

I’ll never forget Igilanda Kukuye (whatever the first name means). Kukuye, on the other hand, is a Nigerian term for weeds. This guy was ever eccentric all the time we were in school. Gangling with a permanently wide-open mouth, Igilanda would laugh boisterously over the slightest hint of a joke and he was always excited over every little issue. Only God knows where Igilanda Kukuye is now but I wish to know his real name.

There was Basket of Trouble. Most of the time that we were in school, I usually called him Basket, for short. He would always want to be seen and known as a tough guy. And for someone with his taste for a peculiar “recreational stuff”, he could really appear tough to outsiders with his glassy eyes. But to to those of us close to him, he was a very quiet, pleasant young man. I never knew his real names until a couple of months ago.

There was also a classmate known as Falapa. He was notorious for being a biker who would always bring his father’s bike to the school and boarding house area just to dazzle other students. I can’t wait to know his real name.

There were also some classmates who will always be remembered for certain events and situations that revolved around them. I remember my first day in the school. I was among the first batch of new students to arrive at the boys’ hostel. In view of this, I was able to stand by the balcony to observe other new students as they arrived. I remember one short, stocky young man standing beside a huge metal box. His name was Fatai Aminu. In those days, if a student was in, say, Form 3, he or she would be addressed as Senior XYZ by all other students in lower classes and, of course, school prefects were addressed as either sir or ma’am. Prefects were feared and revered as teachers by other students.

On this fateful day, Senior Awalu, who was also the Food Prefect, was passing by when a naive Fatai said to him “excuse me sir?” The prefect turned around to inquire what the new student wanted. The new student actually wanted the senior to give him a hand in lifting the metal box to his head. But there was a “lost in translation” problem as the new student used a wrong grammatical expression.

“Can you please help me carry this load?” Fatai asked the senior with a gesture to his head.

“What?’ Senior Awalu asked in consternation. “You...a bloody Form one student is asking me to carry a load for you?”

Confused and scared, the new student began to wonder why the senior was so angry with him over a simple request.

In the meantime, the Food Prefect called the attention of some other senior students around to come witness the situation. A furious Senior Awalu was about giving the boy a punishment for insubordination and disrespect when the Head Boy (Senior Oretolu) burst into laughter as he explained the situation to the other man. Now comprehending the situation, even Awalu could not help joining in the laughter.

Shortly after that incident, everyone looked curiously as a short "small" boy approached the hostel with his stuff while right behind him was a bigger boy with just a mat in his hand.

The Head Boy pointed at the two boys. "Ah, look at “Soja Idumota pelu alaru e” (the statues of a second world war Nigerian soldier with his porter situated at Idumota in Lagos, Nigeria)".

Everyone burst into laughter.

It turned out that the small boy was Sunday Ojo (now Lanre Coker-Ojo) while the big boy was Jeremiah Nasuru. Everyone thought the bigger boy was a porter whereas, he came to the school with only a mat as a matter of convenience so that he could shop for the required boarding house items in the nearby market. And as for sticking together, Sunday explained that although the two came from different places and were meeting for the first time, they both realized that they had one thing in common. They both spoke Hausa language fluently. From the moment they met, the two boys decided to stick together in the strange environment like Siamese twins. Almost inseparable, all you would hear them speak was the Hausa language.

I also remember Lanre Joseph (now Olayinka Gabriel). There was a practice in those days whereby some of us boarding house students would go against the school rule to use empty tins of tea or Bounrvita to cook foods. Lanre was cooking some food that day when, in total error, he tried to open the cover of the tin. As he bent down to do this, the tight pressure inside the tin suddenly exploded onto his chest. The entire skin covering his chest was turned into snow white as he writhed in severe pain. In spite of the boy’s pain though, the house master took the time to show him to some of us around with the hope that we would learn from the lesson.

This story is dedicated to OBHS as it approaches its 40th Anniversary in July, 2012.