Old boys relive school days

 

EBHS during one of the inter-house sports in the 50s

As old boys of Eko Boys High School (EBHS) gathered on Sunday to plan the centenary celebration of their alma mater, the reunion offered the opportunity to relive the “good old school days”.

Among the old boys are Group Managing Director, First Bank Plc Bisi Onasanya; multiple award-winning mathematician Prof Aderemi Kuku; Esama of Benin Chief Gabriel Igbinedion; former military administrator of Bauchi and Borno states Navy. Capt. Rasheed Raji (rtd); ace broadcaster and Permanent Secretary, Lagos Television Services, Lekan Ogunbanwo; the late Dr Olusola Saraki, the late monarch of Eko Oba Adeyinka Oyekan of Lagos and the late Alhaji Santos Anjorin.

Shouts of the school’s slogan, In Domino Confidimus (In God we trust) rent the air at the meeting. The old boys’ were nostalgic as they sang the school anthem.

In an aside Mr Sulaimon Ayinde 71 set, recalled a football match that went awry.

He said: “I remember a time we had a football match between the school and Zumuratu Islamiyya Grammar School. It happened that one of our old boys who left Eko Boys enrolled at Zumuratu later on and incidentally, he was a member of the team. However, the unexpected happened. He went there with the soccer boot which he collected from Eko Boys and he was able to score a goal against us with that boot. All of a sudden, the whole students flared up, that ‘this boy collected our soccer boot and used it to score against us, why didn’t he collect soccer boot from his current school:? That was the spirit of camaraderie we all shared then?”

Mr Bode Osoba was the general secretary of the 59 set which was later rechristened ‘Kanga Club 59 set’

“You see, Osoba recollected, “kanga is a Yoruba name which means a well. Kanga was what we drank then, no pipe borne water in Eko Boys High School. That was how we arrived at the name ‘Kanga Club’. In my time, we were just 25 in class.”

“Most of us in Kanga Club are now in our late 70s and early 80s. We are the leading and the oldest service club today. One of the teachers at that time was an old boy Mr V.G Chinwa who came back to teach and eventually became the principal. He composed the school anthem which we all sing today, and that remains the legacy that we in the 50s left for the old boys.”

Mr Bola Fashina 1974 set also recalled the school’s heydays.

He said: “I was here in 1974, in Form One. I remember that prefects used to take us in extra classes whenever examination was coming. That is why before we wrote WASCE, we usually boasted that we could attain certain grades in certain subjects. We told ourselves with confidence, ‘I should be able to get 90 or 100 per cent in this or that subject. So it’s not just efforts of teachers alone, but many of the old students. I also remember some 10 years ago, we had a group of Ekorians who returned here to teach for nothing.”

The old boys are seeking ways to restore the school’s glory by taking up projects. In this regard, Alhaji Gbolahan Adisa Sholabi, 1963 set, who was the deputy senior prefect in his time said: “We have used our own ways to contribute money to refurbish particularly science laboratories, and built the computer laboratory. When I was leaving this school 50 years ago, we were only 34 in the class. By 1980, students were more than 200 in a class.

 

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