RELUCTANT STUDENT

Reflecting on the half century anniversary of my class set’s R entry into Government College Ibadan (GCI) in January 1972, I must first and foremost give thanks to the heavenly Father who makes all things possible for bringing a good majority of us all this far. This is indeed a monumental milestone for which we cannot but be thankful to God. One must also thank the Almighty for the lives of our departed compatriots. May their dear souls all rest in peace. After the thanksgiving, I can then candidly confess that I really didn’t want to attend GCI at the time of my gaining admission in late 1971! The main reason I ended up attending was because of my now late dad’s insistence that I follow in a family tradition that he and brother (Ifaturoti E. A., school number 257, 1936 – 1942) had established in attending the great school three and a half decades prior to our time.
Born in Lagos in the year of the country’s national independence, I split my primary education between the bustling capital city (at the time) and later, Ibadan, where the family moved to in 1970. Among a few other schools, my siblings and I attended Corona School, Yaba, Lagos and later All Saints School Ibadan. In 1971, I took the national common entrance and other private exams with a view to gaining admission into one of the top secondary schools in the country. Foremost on the wish list of my dad was of course his alma mater, GCI but also in consideration were four other highly rated schools: King’s College Lagos, International School Ibadan (ISI), Loyola College, Ibadan and Igbobi College, Lagos. I scaled through all the entrance exams successfully and was invited to the interviews for the final selections of all five. Of all these, by far the most attractive choice to my precocious young mind was ISI. This was because of the liberal American educational model on which the running of the school was fashioned. Conversely, the other schools including GCI were all modelled on the strict conservative British public school system established during the country’s colonial era.
I recall that GCI and KC interviews were both held on GCI grounds at Apata Ganga, one after the other. The GCI interview was a three-day sleep over event for a regimented programme of tests and activities that included learning Latin! Although exciting and a welcome experience for me, the three-day sojourn in the school’s facilities still clearly hinted of the rigours and tough living conditions of boarding house life at GCI. The KC interview was a much shorter one-day one-day event that seemed to have gone by quickly without being memorable for anything other than written tests and oral interview sessions. On the other hand, the ISI one-day interview reinforced the allure of the school’s setting in my juvenile mind. The school’s relatively new and modern facilities presented a much more appealing choice for me. As its name suggested, the co-educational secondary school had a sizeable community of foreign nationals. Its “international” flair and the prospects of meeting kids from different parts of the world certainly seemed very exciting to me. ISI was also situated within the then pristine and beautiful premises of Nigeria’s premier University of Ibadan which was quite close to our home at the time in Bodija Estate and my preferred choice by far was to be a day student at the school which in any case only had limited boarding facilities open to mostly students who lived outside Ibadan. The school’s general atmosphere was one that seemed much freer and leisurely than GCI’s and those of the older regimented schools. All in all, ISI seemed a much more conducive setting for a school in my young adolescent mind, much more so than the Spartan and tough lifestyle the other schools, including GCI. GCI had in fact acquired a fearsome reputation of being a very tough military-like institution in which corporal punishment was applied unsparingly. A number of older cousins and sons of family friends who were attending GCI at the time had already painted a very grim and grueling picture of boarding house life in the school and the very abbreviation “GCI” had even been corrupted in the local myths of our primary school neighbourhood groups to read “Grass Cutting Institute”, creating even greater dread of the school in my mind!
At any rate, I attended all the interviews I was called for apart from Igbobi, which my parents felt was unnecessary. I was eventually successful in gaining admission into three of the schools, the exception being KC, which criteria for admission was not strictly based on merit but on a skewed quota system that mostly favoured applicants from certain parts of the country considered to be educationally disadvantaged. ISI results were the first to be released and once I was accepted I was overjoyed and began trying to persuade my mum to prevail on my dad to have me take up the admissions offer, rather than waiting for the GCI results that would come later. The ISI school calendar was based on the American system, beginning in September 1971 for the 1971/72 school session while all other schools were based on starting early January in 1972. Several of my classmates at All Saints’ Ibadan had decided on going to ISI which further bolstered my desire to be amongst them. However, after the GCI admission results arrived, any prospects of my going to ISI evaporated completely as my dad would not countenance the thought of me going anywhere other than to the boarding house of his alma mater. Looking back in hindsight, I am happy to note that I have long come to realize that this was one of the best decisions my dad ever made for me! Of course, back then I did not think so. I still remember how disappointed, even disgruntled I was when September 1971 came and several of my All Saints’ classmates left to start in ISI while I still remained at All Saints’ with a few other classmates awaiting end of the third and final term of the 1971 school year to start at GCI early in the new year of 1972.

Thus arrived January 1972 and early in the month I was enrolled as an 11 year old first form GCI boarding student – Ifaturoti Adedamola, with school number 2455, assigned to Grier House just like my dad had been thirty-two years before, in 1940. GCI was, in the initial stages, as tough as nails just as I’d feared during the admissions process. Adjusting to boarding house life was daunting for most first formers like me leaving home for the first time. Personally, I endured as much, if not more than the usual measure of the “trials and tribulations” of first formers in a culture that permitted bullying and highhanded treatment of junior boys by their seniors. The tough life manifested in being assigned what appeared then difficult house duties, having to run endless errands for senior boys, and being often maltreated by some of them, having to serve rigorous house and school punishments and detentions, being subjected to vindictive and cruel corporal punishments by some teachers and what not. However, as one advanced gradually into the more senior forms, school life became less oppressive and was actually enjoyable in certain aspects. I had a checkered record in academics and at my best I was an average student overall who gravitated more towards the arts rather than the science subjects for which GCI was better known. I did well in English and Literature and really enjoyed History. In the junior forms I participated in a number of extracurricular and sporting activities, serving as a member of the arts and literary and debating societies, competing in short distance track events in athletics. From the onset I was the fastest runner in the set in my (Grier) House and represented the house at the shuttlecock 100-metre relay races in my first two years. However, most of the classmates in the other houses whom I competed against were older and bigger boys with clear physical advantages over me! I also loved music, (in its most popular forms rather than the theoretical) and I was recruited early into the junior ensemble of the school band (Sound Incorporation) in my first form to play the bass guitar. I invariably became band leader in the senior forms. And even though, admittedly, the band formations of our times may not have been, overall, as individually skillful as some that came before and after us, we, nonetheless, have had the rare legacy of having in our number an individual who later developed into a nationally and internationally acclaimed musician in adult life, though out of respect for the anonymity under which he has practised his craft, I will not mention his name! We all know who he is!
In conclusion, I believe GCI provided me with a solid foundation that has served me pretty well in adult life; the physical rigours and challenges I went through in the early forms served to toughen me up and prepare me for the great challenges of life. Perseverance, diligence, honesty, humility, dedication to hard work, self-respect and respect for authority and others, and fairness in dealing with people are among the virtues the great school on the rock inculcated in its products, one of which I will always be proud of being. As expressed above, attending GCI was not a love at first sight affair for me. I fervently resisted attending the school as much as I could at the onset. However, fifty years after, I have nothing but mostly joyful memories, pride, and indeed pleasure, for the experience of spending five years at Apata Ganga (1972-76) and I will always acknowledge that the relationships and friendships I formed with class and school mates attending the “school built on the rock” have been the most enduring and meaningful for me.
Up School.

Culled From: Our story (1972 Set Anniversary book)
Submitted By: ADEDAMOLA IFATUROTI (SN 2455, Grier House)