15th JANUARY 1970

15th January, 1970, wasn't just an ordinary day for him and other members of his family. It was the day he would go to a boarding house. His parents had always considered Government College, Ibadan, the nation's premier secondary educational institution, and on this day, they eagerly supervised his preparation. Before this resumption date, all his school uniforms, khaki shorts, white shirts and shorts, sandals, tennis shoes and other stuff had been purchased and labeled. His initials had been sewn on all his garments, and he
would wonder why.
It had to be the most monumental time of his life up to that point because he remembered virtually everything that was in his big cardboard portmanteau: his blue half pint plastic cup, his cutlery - fork, knife, tablespoon and teaspoon, Johnson baby oil, Sulphurs pomade, Drive detergent, Aerosol soap, a face towel, a mosquito net, a blue grey blanket, bed sheets, a metal bucket, sponge case, bathing bowl, a math's set and writing materials, amongst many other things.
He had a bath as instructed and lightly powdered his face. Finally. it was time to go. Both his younger and older sisters cried as he got in the car with his parents, his luggage loaded in the boot. The former cried because she wasn't permitted to ride along in the car with their parents; the reason that his older sister cried he didn't know. She was a student of St. Anne's School and would not be returning to the boarding house until about a week later.
The drive to Apata Ganga proceeded quietly except for the radio that was tuned to the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service (WNBS) and which somberly broadcast that a soldier called Olusegun Obasanjo was engaging another called Phillip Effiong in what he would later know as the surrender treaty that ended the Nigerian civil war. They silently dropped him off at Carr House, the school House to which he had been assigned. A senior boy welcomed him, showed him his room and checked his luggage, he would think more to ensure that he had no illegal items inside, than to ensure they were complete.
He could feel a mixture of anxiety and happiness in the attitude ofhis parents as they left. "My dear son, be good and gentle," his mother tonelessly said to him. "Don't fight with anybody," his father added.
He wondered why they wouldn't directly look him in the eyes as they drove away. He also wondered why his father had said what he said, he certainly had never been one to go around looking for a fight.
They waved anxious goodbyes; he waved back feeling happy and free. He proceeded to settle in. He was now a big boy!
Two kids, green as the grass in spring, both filled with apprehension for what was ahead, never having been away from home for longer than a few days, George and Femi met for the first time, as school resumed for first formers, at their new secondary school. They were both assigned to the same dormitory, their bunks separated by only three feet of walking distance.
after their parents left.
"My name is Femi Falashe,, he said to George later in the evening
"George Obazee is mine; and I am scared," George replied.
"Why is that?" Femi asked.
"I don't know. This is my first time away from home all on my own." George said.
"Makes two of us," Femi told George. "What school are you from?"
"Maryhill Convent School" George replied; "and you?"
"Ebenezer African Church School." And so their long friendship began.
All the new boys first met up in the dining hall at seven in the evening, all ninety of them, from different primary schools mainly from the Southern part of the country. Dinner was a meal of dodo with vegetable soup which he thoroughly enjoyed, a crown to his first day of newly found freedom. Lights out was at ten in the night. It had been a very tedious day and he slept like a baby. He wasn't sure whether he was roused from sleep by the loud handbell ringing at six thirty in the morning, or by the amiable Form Four student in the room, who had, the previous day, got them settled in. His name was Dina, please. As they had been instructed, you were not permitted to call anyone by their first name in this school, and you were required to append an obligatory Please, to the surname of a senior whenever you needed his attention. Thus, it was Dina, please who woke the boys up by banging on the frame of their double-decker beds. They got up to make their beds the GCI way, the blanket first on the mattress and the white bed sheet thereafter. It was prohibited to sleep on the bed with the white sheet on. The House water tank was located about a hundred yards away from the dormitory room. It had been useful as the primary source of water supply in the preceding years of dire scarcity. But now, there was running water from the taps and they didn't need to go with their metal buckets to fetch water from the tank. Brrrr!
The harmattan chill was in the air, and the water coming from the shower was as cold as ice. Nevertheless, he thought this a test of endurance he owed himself the duty to pass. He howled as the chilly water stung his naked body. He hurriedly washed himself clean with soap andsponge, and by the time the water washed the suds off, he couldn't feel any of the chill anymore. He generously slathered greasy pomade over his body and wore his clothes. Feeling proud of himself, he prepared to face the day. George, on the other hand, proceeded to do the sensible alternative. He brushed his teeth, hastily sprinkled some drops of water on his limbs and face, and wiped the water off with his crisp new towel. This rebellious mode of ablution was a reputation which would follow George for the first three years of boarding house. It was an old school. A wider adventure around the school grounds would reveal about a million acres of lawns and sports fields, miles and miles of planted Casuarina hedges, or so it appeared to the little kids. The school grounds also had within it a wide expanse of forest teeming with reptiles, and through which according to folklore, a monstrous bogey locally known as Paddiman Joe roamed in the night. They would also learn that the school, Government College, Ibadan, also popularly known as GCI, was a place where soldiers were garrisoned during the second World War (WWII). Indeed, adventurous students or those serving hard detention chores did sometimes unearth whole human skeletons and caches of buried and quite expired ammunition.
Both would remember the day they entered school as January 15, 1970, the day the Nigerian Civil War ended. The Nigerian Civil War was fought between the Government of Nigeria and the secessionist state of Biafra, which represented nationalist aspirations of the Igbo people, whose leadership felt they could no longer coexist with the Northern-dominated Federal Government. The immediate causes of the war in 1966 included ethno-religious riots in Northern Nigeria, a military coup, a counter-coup and the persecution of Igbo living in Northern Nigeria.
The Federal Government troops surrounded Biafra, capturing coastal oil facilities and the city of Port Harcourt. The blockade imposed during the ensuing stalemate led to mass starvation. During the two and a half years of the war, which started on July 6, 1967, there were about one hundred thousand military casualties overall, while between five hundred thousand and three million Biafran civilians died of starvation. While January 15, 1970, may have presented to the entire country the opportunity for a new beginning, it opened for the new kids a new highway to unusual challenges.


Culled from: Metamorphoses, 50th Anniversary Yearbook(1970 Set).