My keynote address to FEGO Class of 98

An Unexpected Invitation

I was invited to give a keynote address to the Federal Government College Odogbolu, Class of '98, on the general topics of alumni, networking, life and purpose. After a few light jokes about how I had been surreptitiously co-opted into the activity, I began my address.

This cohort of successful people are entering middle age; they are mid-career, raising families and will face challenges ahead. I suppose there was a view that I could share some of my life experiences to help them avoid a mid-life crisis and attend to healthy life choices.

It was an honour to meet the Class of '98, and I wish them Godspeed.

My Lead-in

FEGO Class of '98, you graduated in the Silver Jubilee year of your school's founding; quite auspicious.

My history with Odogbolu is somewhat long and interesting. In January 1976, we were living in Kaduna when my parents had the crazy idea of sending me to a secondary school close to where they were born, in Ijesha-Ijebu, so that I might be imbibed with Yoruba culture.

Baptist Academy, Mayflower School, Odogbolu Grammar School, Remo Secondary School (RSS); I cannot remember the school in Ibadan where I sat the common entrance examination. Did I have a life of privilege? I flew in from Kaduna, and there was someone to collect me and take care of me for the duration of my visit.

I do not know why I was not put forward for any of the unity schools, even though I realise there were opportunities for those. I suppose my primary school environment in Jos and Kaduna was a disadvantage to my becoming integrated into Nigeria. The schools were international, with a high percentage of Europeans, Chinese and Japanese, so I was not really growing into a Nigerian per se.

Odogbolu Grammar School and Remo Secondary School both offered me admission. I took the latter because the former's campus bordered on a graveyard; I had had the strangest things happen to me at ten, and that settled my decision.

Two years ago, my nephew was admitted to the Federal Government College Odogbolu (FEGO) at the age of nine. A year later, his brother, with whom he shares a birthday though they are two years apart, joined him. They are probably the youngest in their year group, just as I was in primary school and then in secondary school.

I find it strange that I am giving an address to an alumni association because, whilst I made a few friends at RSS, my memories of the five years I spent there are not ones I cherish that much. We had to be street smart, even as we stood out because of our accents. We were bedwetters; back then it was thought a weakness rather than something psychological. There was the occasional bully, and the use of collective punishment was rife. Thankfully, the core of individuality, inquisitiveness and fearlessness could not be beaten out of me.

Apart from on Facebook, I have no enduring friends from the RSS Class of '81. I met up with old schoolmates from my primary school after 41 years in 2016. I still have friends from Lacostech; from YabaTech, where no one believed I was 16 when I was admitted; and from the Federal Polytechnic Ilaro, where, on my first day, I met a junior from secondary school who was in his final year whilst I was starting afresh.

Have Your Purpose

Considering the good fortune and opportunities I had from birth through secondary school, the four years afterwards were sobering. I attended two polytechnics and ended up with nothing. My third attempt, born of travail and raw experience, widened my perspective on what I could achieve. I was no longer haunted by my past or fearful of the future. I simply determined that, by 35, I would be able to stand amongst my peers unashamed of what I had done with my life. I began to see good results already at 24.

Do Something Radical

In 2000, just after the Millennium bug issue, I was having trouble finding a new job. I was attending interviews and getting good reviews, but no offers. A mentor advised me to speak to an occupational psychotherapist, who concluded that I was suffering a mid-life crisis ten years early. His advice was to consider a career change, perhaps go back to school, or even emigrate to another country.

I took the hint and started looking for opportunities in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. Meanwhile, I got a job in the UK and, on a day off, flew out to the Netherlands for an interview. I got that job, and with it 13 years of life in Holland.

Have a plan, do things in the interim, but do not lose your focus and do not be distracted.

Embrace Youthful Aspirations

When I was about to buy an apartment in Amsterdam, the first thing I did was ask the estate agent to feel my hands. She said they were soft. Indeed, I retorted, I do not do DIY; I want a place I need not do anything to, and please complete the deal in six weeks. She did.

The couple I bought my home from were in their mid-70s. They had lived in Eindhoven for 25 years and could easily have lived out the rest of their days there, but they bought an apartment in Amsterdam off the plan and came to live there for almost four years. During that time, she became the chairman of the homeowners' association.

Then they decided that, because of their age, they needed a place where they could receive better care. They sold up in Amsterdam for a healthy profit and bought a riverside residential care apartment in Arnhem. I still wish I could make decisions like that, whatever age I am.

Then there is my uncle, who was and still is the playful adult in my life, someone I can talk to about anything. I can be utterly irreverent, yet always respectful. He was one of the foremost insurers in Nigeria, a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Insurers and an examiner for the council.

In the space of a few years, he lost his car a couple of times to armed robbers, so he decided to move to the UK, where he is now settled. He called me one day and said he wanted to go back to school to study petroleum engineering. I asked whether he was going for a master's programme; he said he was applying for a bachelor's degree.

Obviously, I thought him too distinguished for such a somewhat lowly pursuit, but he expressed such humility in his decision to take it on.

He was already 60. He tells me the course was one of the hardest he ever attended. He had failed so many examinations from adolescence into adulthood that my father, on returning from the UK, promised him £10 if he passed. That £10 debt is still a running joke in our conversations.

He stood out throughout the course, the older man, wise from a world of experience in C-suite jobs. Students and faculty alike were always seeking his viewpoint on many things. By graduation, he had been gravely ill and was recuperating, so the university arranged to collect him from hospital to attend the ceremony. When his name was called, along with the citations, he received a standing ovation.

Such a thing can never happen if you are not ready to embrace your youth and your youthful aspirations. Do something new; assess yourself against your aspirations rather than against others; believe in yourself even if no one else does; and never let your failures define you today or in your future.

Recently, on the radio, I heard Isabel Allende asked, "How do you fall in love at 76?" She answered, "Like 26, only with a little more urgency."

Identity Is a Construct

I have a keen sense of my identity: I am an Englishman of Nigerian heritage. I arrived at that idea of who I am when I lived in the Netherlands and had to answer the question of where I was originally from.

I was born in England, grew up in England and Nigeria, then lived in the Netherlands for almost 13 years. Why am I not Nigerian? I was like everyone else until my accent betrayed me. To so many, I was the child born abroad; I was not entirely accepted in Nigeria.

My mother tongue is English, but my mother's tongue is Yoruba. I am proud to say that, even as an Aje-butter, I speak Yoruba to a very good standard. My Hausa, however, needs some work; I was in the North only until 1977.

Identity is a construct of influences: many good, some bad, and a few you need to discard completely. Accept who you are, and do not let anyone question the legitimate version of you.

On an Uber ride last week, the driver told me about his extraordinarily brilliant nephew, who had excellent A-level results but could not make it through the Oxbridge interviews to gain admission. I knew what the problem was: much had gone into academic achievement but very little into identity and personality development. The poor chap was cowed by the environment.

Community is good, but you also need to interact with wider society and have a sense of confidence, completely different from arrogance; a healthy self-esteem, completely different from feeling an impostor; and the ability to express yourself clearly, completely different from being loud and vulgar.

When I returned to the UK from Nigeria in 1990, I already had a good sense of who I was. My blackness was always part of me; anyone who had an issue with it, that was their problem, not mine. I also had a good sense of history. So, when someone trying to be offensively racist said to me, "100 years ago I would have shot you," I was immediately able to respond, "200 years ago, I would have eaten you."

Be a sleeping dog, but be ready to bite when kicked; probably take the leg off, if you must.

Let the best influences of culture, of beliefs, of location, of friendships, of communication, of reading and of learning define who you are in personality, in expression, in empathy, in humanity and in the pursuit of happiness.

Your Health Is Wealth

Ten years ago, what appeared to be athlete's foot had become painful and was beginning to weep. At the back of my mind, I thought it was serious, but I was willing it away. A residual element of my religious upbringing was interfering with my reasoning; thoughts about faith, miracles and so on.

Then I decided to visit my GP. She took one look at the sole of my foot and said, "This looks serious, I need to refer you." The first referral, two days later, led to another four days after that, because of the intervening weekend.

The professor came to examine me and said, "You cannot go home; we have a bed for you upstairs." That is how my treatment for cancer started. I did not realise how serious it was until the eighth day in hospital, when the professor came round to tell me: "We can treat this, but it depends on how your body takes the treatment. If it can, you'll be fine; otherwise, you probably have five weeks." Five weeks!

I spent 18 days in hospital and then five months of gruelling chemotherapy. Sometimes I could not keep my food down for days.

Because of cancer, I lost everything: status, wealth, my home of ten and a half years, prospects. But I did not lose hope, and definitely not the will to live.

Part of my life education had been the ability to let go of things, not to let things have a hold on me. Because of that, I have been able to go on to new things, do new things, think new things, achieve new things and prosper in life, despite the old things of the past; because they pass, and in the process you are given a better story. In learning to let go, I realised that an open hand is one that is ready to receive.

Consider your health; go for scheduled and regular check-ups. I have a better idea of my health situation than my medical notes can provide. I have been fortunate to be treated as an intelligent patient, even though, with hindsight, I have been foolish.

One identity construct that has helped me get the best outcomes for my health and treatment was telling two professors of medicine, "It is my body first, before it is your guinea pig." They listened and backed down from the intrusive and uncomfortable course they had planned.

Key Points

These are some of the key points from my address.

·       Do not be afraid of failure; be afraid of never trying.

o   I have failed at many things; the lessons have become part of my world of experience.

o   I say do it, rather than regret not doing it at all.

·       An opportunity once lost can be regained after a temporary setback.

o   I have had many setbacks, but never entirely lost opportunities.

·       Accept your vulnerabilities; they are part of your humanity.

o   I needed therapy, and when I went for it, it helped me and enriched the therapist too.

·       Embrace change and be prepared for it in every area of your life, because if you hate change, you will hate irrelevance even more.

o   I have not survived 31 years in IT by being stagnant; I have had to adapt and improve continually. I have been a self-employed contractor since 1995.

·       Learn to rest, learn to play, find time for yourself and do new things.

o   And suddenly I found this liking for classical music; travel calms me down; I love quirky things.

·       The greatest thing you can pass down is example: an example of contentment, which is not the lack of ambition; an example of resilience, so that you never fold in adversity; an example of empathy, walking a long, hard mile in another's shoes before you dare assume you know better.

o   I will probably not inherit much from my parents, but these are things that have stood the test of time.

·       Everyone has a story; you can tell yours too.

o   In the ordinariness of our lives, when you begin to count your blessings, you realise how extraordinary your life has been.

In Closing

In speaking to this alumni gathering, it is 21 years since you left FEGO. I hope it is more than the mere fact that you attended school together that has brought you here. I hope there is a friendliness that goes beyond acquaintance; a love deeper than mere concern; an engagement that ensures no one of you falls to the ground; a brotherliness and sisterliness that means each of you has another to whom you can turn for advice, direction and even admonition.

Yes, you can gather to laugh and play, but there must also be times when you speak the truth frankly and without equivocation. We all need some tough talk alongside the support to see it through. We cannot afford to be ashamed amongst true friends.

FEGO Class of 1998, I commend you: live well, live strong, live long and live happily.

Thank you.

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