By Kehinde Bamigbetan The boy in green shirt and brown knickers brought the right hand on his forehead down sharply to salute. His mates, equally dressed in the uniform of the Boy’s Scout of Nigeria followed suit. They began a military parade turning left and right and finished the exercise to the excitement of the audience. After the Boys Scout, the members of Red Cross , dressed in their white uniform with the organisation’s name in red letters stepped forward to perform a similar drill. Both clubs were well rewarded with deserved applause. The boys were put through the training by senior officials of the Boys Scout and the Red Cross just a few days before the event held on Friday April 28, this year. The venue was the football pitch of St John’s Grammar School, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.The audience comprised the 1977 set of the school’s alumni, the officers of the national body and wellwishers. One man made it happen. His name Adeniyi Ademiju, a pilot of over three decades who currently flies chartered operations. Ademiju was passionate about the need to stem the declining moral standards among the youths. According to him: “⁸the culture of respecting elders was disappearing.” The trigger for this intervention came from a recent tragedy at Chrisland School in Lagos. His words: “It was the incident of the girl that was electrocuted during sports at Chrisland College in Lagos that got me worried. According to the reports, despite dying from shock, they were pouring cold water on her. I felt if there had been students who belonged to the Red Cross in the school, they would have given the victim proper first aid that might have saved the girl. So I called the secretary-general of our alumni, Debo Adefisan and asked if the school still had a Red Cross club. He told me it had died. I felt sad because I used to belong to Boys Scout as a student and we worked with the Red Cross to handle such accidents during inter-house sports. I also remembered that Wednesdays preparatory period was set aside for […]
Continue readingAuthor Archives: Sjoba_Online Manager
WATER IS LIFE : DR. FESTUS ODUNAYO OSHOBA.
By Debo Adefisan Dateline: Saturday, June 24, 2023 at about 4.42pm, the development of the Borehole sunk to pump 10,000 Liters of water per day for use in all areas within St. John’s Grammar School, ILE-IFE was concluded. Water was pumped non stop for 45 minutes as a proof that this well will not dry up either intermittently or ‘sine die’ like that of the 2 Manual pump boreholes earlier provided by the Government. You will recall that we drank water from a Concrete underground water reservoir as Students of this great School. Our Toilet was a pit system where water was not supplied. We used improvised devices to fetch water from the reservoir in front of our Library and some of our Seniors confiscated such Water for their use???? The need for Water in such an expanse of human community cannot be over emphasized. Reverend Father Fabian Cloutier dug a Well in front of ‘Baba Agric’ Quarters which was fitted with a surface pump and reticulated using booster pumps to places within the School Compound. Three of the Eight Staff Quarters and the Adminstrative building initially had water reticulated to their closets. Mr. A. T Aremu, Mrs. Harrinder Sutton and Mr. Raymond Babatunde all enjoyed water in their Quarters until a certain time in 1979 when there was a disruption that couldn’t be easily addressed. Water became an essential commodity within the School and the Well was opened. Oke Atan community as at then had very few productive wells suitable for potability. So, they flocked to St. John’s to fetch Water in droves, polluting the well, driving conflicts and misgivings until locks were fitted on the Well again. That Well does not dry up either in the dry or raining season but it is largely unsuitable for drinking. This was the situation in St. John’s Grammar School until Chief Dr. Olusola Oyeyemi intervened by drilling a Borehole currently in use in the School. The challenge of the noble effort by Dr. Oyeyemi is the hard igneous rock on which the entire school land sits. According to the reports of […]
Continue reading