The Historic Baton Change

The Historic Baton Change

The year was 1968 and the Class of 65 was in Class 4. We were by now senior boys and were well versed in the GCI traditions. In the outside world, Nigeria was in the pangs of a raging civil war. The radio jingles had started to ring loud:

"To keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done"

A new acronym had been coined for General Gowon, the then Head of State: Go on with One Nigeria. A few our classmates had unavoidably left for the east due to the uncertainties of the times. The rapid sequence of events in the preceding two years were such that you just did not know what could come next. The coup d’états and counter coups had left not a few national and regional leaders dead or unaccounted for. And now what started as police action had metamorphosed into a full blown war. The nation now had to learn to expect the unexpected: and so everyone has to learn what to do in the event of a bomb landing near you. The Nigerian Civil Defence Corps was recruiting people in large numbers. A similar thing was happening in the east, though we had to make do with the stories that came through official channels.

Then came the announcement in school. DJ was leaving. Was he returning to his native UK or being transferred to another school? The details did not matter. DJB has been Principal since 1959 and so everyone in the school in 1968 had only known DJ. He had a way with the boys. For example the Class I Time Table featured what was called Principal's Time, I guess for want of any other description. And this lesson occurred once a week and only in the first term, and DJ took the lesson personally, We not know it then, but the sole purpose of the PT was for DI to get to know the boys individually. And know them he did. By the second term of your first year, DJ would call you by name wherever he met you - on the sports field, in the library or the dining hall. We got to know and love him even though he sometimes whacked you bare bottom after dinner on Sunday night if you had accumulated three 'Detentions' or committed some other infraction deserving of the cane.

His swagger as he took the final bend on the corridor to enter the Assembly Hall every morning was legendary. And soon some Heads of School had the same swagger as they led DJ into the assembly.

D] was passionate about theatre. The school stage renditions of Shakespeare's works were talk-of-the-town. The Chapel. He simply donned his academic gown and, pronto, here comes the priest. I don't know recall how his homilies went. but service was something we enjoyed. There were guest preachers when we had Confirmation service or other special events. But otherwise, DJ took the Chapel

And so the announcement came that DJ was leaving. The boys would hear none of it. I do not recall who led it or where the idea came from, but we embarked on a hunger strike. Stories went out that DI's transfer - now we knew it was a transfer - was something motivated by certain political manipulations. That infuriated the boys even more. A couple days later, the then Vice Principal Mr ATO Odunsi addressed the assembly to calm things down and restore school routine. "You are eggs", he said, as he chastised us for daring to contemplate a hunger strike. "If you fall on a stone, you break. If a stone falls on you, you break". At the end of his speech, we then got more details of the impending change at the helm. DJ was indeed leaving on transfer to the Ministry of Education, and in his place we would have Mr (later Chief) J B O Ojo, who himself was an Old Boy. Only then was there a sigh of relief
Over the next few weeks and months, we got to know the new man - soft spoken, consummate sports enthusiast and music lover, but not the same passion about theatre as DJ. We got to know JB (as we called him) and couldn't miss the difference between his accent and that of DJ. The phrase 'Bend over, my boy was characteristic of DJ, especially in the way he expressed it. This was a common phrase on Sunday evening caning session in his office, as he admonished the receiver to bend over after pulling his pants down for a 'bare-bottom' treatment. It did not take us too long to notice that JB's style of administration was different, but no less effective, and in time, things went back to normal; everyone got used to the new.

The one lesson that the episode left for every student was that change is an integral part of life, and that change is an important and necessary ingredient for progress. This was a lesson that would serve us through the rest of our lives.

Bunmi Oni

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ONI Olubunmi
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