I remember that under the chairmanship of Gregory Nwokeji, a subset of St. Finbarr’s Old Boys Association (SFCOBA) comprising members of first six sets of the school which was called Finbarr’s First Six, commissioned the building of a number of quality school forms to replace worn-out school desks. The devolution to streams became necessary as the heterogeneity of the association created generation problems in the management of the association.
The association, during my tenure, gave life to sets and branches through a properly contrived amendment to the constitution. From 1982 to 1992, I was constructively the president of the association. I carefully observed the attitude of members of various sets who came to general meetings of the association and picked one Segun Ajanlekoko as my successor. I spoke with him and he accepted to be the flag-bearer of the association. It was tearful transition for me. Tears of joy coursed unrestrainedly down my cheeks at the fact that I had once again served and passed the baton over to one who would do justice to the call.
I was appointed to the Board of Governors of the school by Lagos State Ministry of Education about 1982 at the instance of the principal of the school, Mr. Kpotie. Not much happened in the school beyond complaints about misconduct of some school children who were accused of robbing a shop in St. Finbarr’s College colours. The board sat and adjudicated the issue. It was discovered that miscreants have the unusual penchant of wearing school colours to perpetrate crime and shelter under teenage pranks.
The school did not receive any reasonable sum from government for running its services beyond the salaries of the staff that came anyway, whether or not the staff came to school twice a teaching week. Monitoring of the school system was abysmal and morality among school kids was at an all-time low. You could find schoolboys coming into school way past nine in the morning with impunity. You would find stragglers all over the streets of Akoka neighbourhood where the school was located. School kids had developed into an irresponsible horde of poorly-dressed children usually flying their shirts, to de-emphasise their being students. They carried little books. They would stuff one notebook in their back pockets and swaggered into school. Abomination.
One of the abominations of the government was that they constricted some space from the well laid out premises during the administration of Lateef Jakande, a former governor of the state, to build a poultry house of a school building and created a co-educational annex to the school. SFCOBA refused to be associated with that school in name. The school remains till this day in another name. Meanwhile, one female graduate of the school attended one of our re-union dinners while the school shared name with us. Cold treatment of the lone intruder was inexorable. She felt so embarrassed that she was a female alone claiming appellative consanguinity with a sea of boys.
In 1993, some 11 years after the inauguration of the Distinguished Conquerors title, Segun Ajanlekoko at a very grand event conferred on me the award of Distinguished Conqueror. My fourth wife, Princess, was at the event. The citation was a moving one. Mr. Ajanlekoko had included that I was so selfless that I did not allow myself to be given an award while I was in office. He regarded the award as one of the most important assignments he had, which was to honour one who deserved it for his rare humility. I saw that my cycle with St. Finbarr’s College closed at that event. I had to look elsewhere in the satisfaction that I had accomplished satisfactorily the polishing of the ladder by which I had climbed. My bishopric someone competent had taken. I publicly declared that I had served and requested henceforth to be excluded from further activity in the association. This was not heeded. But my word stood and I have declined to serve ever since.
I must report that as I was finalising this script for publication, Lagos State Government announced the return of schools to the missionaries that ran them prior to take-over of schools in the late 1960s. It had become apparent to government that running educational institutions has not been easy in a milieu of growing need for secondary education. The failure of the educational system was a loud indictment on the military as iconoclasts of the bastion of growth of the Nigerian nation. My proposal in the 1980s for the flotation of stocks for the continuation of the school would be most appropriate now.
Luckily, I still have the survey plan delimiting the school premises. This could form the basis for a valuation of the assets of the school for the purpose of establishing the capital value created on the site, and this should form the equity which subscribers to share should target. To this, of course, should be added the cost of restoring the school to a highly functional educational set-up in which fees shall be paid for the assurance of quality of the output of the school into the national system. Times have changed. The profit incentive alone should be left to power the educational system. Nothing comes free anymore. The church should not be found to cultivate education now since it is bound to polarise society in a religiously-sensitive Nigeria. In the same manner, Moslem institutions should cease to operate and let the private sector organisations with appropriate capacity take them over for the benefit of Nigeria.
