RSS Mischief III - Swimming like crabs

Water all around

Apart from the front gate and a side gate there were no walls around my boarding secondary school, Remo Secondary School that we all knew as RSS. On the outskirts of Sagamu to the east, over a river bridge called Májọ̀pa that came with its tales of intrigue and paranormal dread that we at times exaggerated into fabulously unbelievable tales fed by imagination.

Then to the right was a hotel complex and a standpipe where we sometimes came for to fetch water if the taps around the school or the water source called Odò gàrrí (Garri pond) was too dirty for any use. The hotel was a disorderly house of ladies we eventually made friends with as aunties and not for any untoward activity.

To the gate

Further on to the roundabout, with two exits, the one to the right towards Ìkẹ́nnẹ́ and ahead over it to Ìpẹru, that part of the roundabout forming the northwest boundary of the school before a wall was built from the west round to the north and then to the east, leaving the south exposed to Odò gàrrí, farmlands, the rain forest that harboured a laughing jackal that for the best part of the first year at night howled the peace away. A path was later cleared for electricity pylons which opened parts of the unnavigable forest to exploration.

Soon after the roundabout was on the road to Ìpẹru was the main gate to Remo Secondary School on the right, facing onto the main staffroom. The wall was just a demarcation not a barrier, as no intrusion deterrents were placed on the tops of the wall, like broken glass or spikes, they were easily scalable to escape the confines or regimentation of hostelry and pathologically sadistic seniors.

Crabs swim better

Crossing the road after scaling the wall just before the roundabout from the school end, we plied a footpath through cocoyam farms then bearing left many pathways presented but one after about 1,500 metres of walking came to a river upstream of Májọ̀pa we called Ibù from which water was extracted for the waterworks and mains.

That part was deep, and no one ventured there because we were told someone drowned having been sucked up by one of the pipes, that was to the right. Ahead of us was a rickety wooden bridge and to the left shallow water where we went for a dip and pretended to swim, moving underwater like crabs.

We ran for dear life

This became a draw, for as many as 10 of us set out for this apparently illegal escape from authority to play. Though, without really witnessing it but following the stampede back to school that ensued. There was a fetish priestess in white who arrived from the other side through the bushes between the river and Sagamu probably to do some ritual to the river goddess.

When she arrived, whether it was a tall tale or not, one can not tell, but apparently, she got to the bank of the river and began to walk on water. We all jumped out of water hardly remembering to pick up our clothes as we broke sprinting world records literally unable to catch our breath and another fantastic yarn on our lips ready for any listening ear.

I cannot remember when the novelty of Ibù wore off, but it was not due to any official action of the school, I guess we found other distractions apart from where a river runs through it.

Blog - RSS Mischief I - Yikes! A snake

Blog - RSS Mischief II - The fundamentals of fluid mechanics

Trying to forget Remo Secondary School at 75

Skipping around schools

Much as I would have liked to remember, it is also forgettable, and that is why I find myself writing about it two days after the event. I attended three primary schools in Kaduna and Jos, in the north of Nigeria in the early 1970s.

The first primary school, the Army Children’s School in Kaduna I barely remember apart from the fact that the headmistress was Indian, and she would walk through assembly in the morning checking our nails then striking our knuckles with the edge of a ruler if they hadn’t been cut. What a child can do about their nails when it is a parent’s responsibility, I don’t know, but that is how we all learnt to bite our nails.

The uneventful year was soon eclipsed by our move to Jos where I attended the Corona School, Shamrock House, Bukuru, and I do have many memories of my being there having jumped a class straight to class 3 through to class 5. We returned to Kaduna for my last year in primary school at the Sacred Heart Primary School where I was away for 4 months in early 1976 attending common entrance examinations for secondary school admission in the south-west of Nigeria.

Never forget the injustice

Remo Secondary School (RSS), Sagamu won my pupillage in September 1976, in it’s 30^th founder’s year. My 5 years in this school, though eventful and interesting remains somewhat forgettable, for I maintain the minimal ties with the place and the institution apart from memories tragic, sad, and unsettling besides the fact that my set in the last year of the Class of 1981 were unjustly punished collectively for what a few miscreants did because the Parents Teachers Association was too lazy to conduct a proper investigation of the issue.

Beyond that, life in the school whilst having thrills left me with hardly any enduring friendships, I have met a few of my class and school mates, even have social media connections with them, but I have shunned all old student association meetings or involvements, this is a part of my history that will be recorded but not necessarily cherished to any extent.

For the little matter

Yet, because dates hold some sort of significance to me, the 4^th of February 2021 was the 75^th Founders’ Anniversary of RSS as the 1^st co-educational secondary school in West Africa, or so it is reputed. We had the school motto of 'For God and Fatherland', the former stands strong, the latter is constantly under review.

That I have visited the grounds a few times in my dreams as it then means for all my misgivings it did have a significant impact on me, I had the nickname of Pastor for most of my time there. Anyway, I am just journaling a piece of my past, there are more stories to tell, in the 40^th year of my exiting that place.

Shame on you! Sagamu

Literary day

When I was in secondary school (Remo Secondary School) just about 30 years ago, we used to have a day of social events called the Literary Day.

Really, I must say, I never saw anything literary about that day apart from people trying to get dressed up to the nines and each prepubescent male trying to get dance with that girl he has had his eye on since he knew he could blink.

I would say, I was never trendy, not by apparel, ostentation nor shoes, but I still tried to look my best and hoped that all that time of practice with my two friends who seemed to be better dancers than one would shine on the day.

There usually was all sorts of entertainment and though we were in Sagamu, Ogun State, the traditional Eyo parade was imported from Eko (Lagos Island), it allowed boys to dress up in white hoods, hats and white masquerade wraps holding a long branch of a shorn palm frond as a beating stick, they made whooping sounds hopping about on one foot, any female who strayed into their path got whacked on the shin.

Menace and violence

The bad side of the Literary Days was evident in Lagos where groups of students would assemble as thugs and hooligans accost other students and guests to these events and by menace strip the hapless kids of their shoes, valuables and designer wear.

In my last year at school, we were off-campus and I remember that the class after ours had planned to menace and harass with violence anyone who appeared in a particular style of fashion which was called Pinto - basically it was like the Pied Piper's costume in a variety of garish colours - an unhealthy development, one must say.

Let's dance

The highlight of the day was from the early evening when we gathered in the main hall and danced to the reggae music which was the rage of the late 70s till Boney M took on and then other American fare.

Within the campus, the girls were quite astute in accessorising themselves, never did one look like the girl in class, however, only a few wore trousers, there had always been this thing about women in trousers, the chauvinistic outlook of men feeling emasculated meant females in trousers could be harassed or even worse.

The trouser thing

When we were invited to the Literary Days of sister schools, most of the other schools in Sagamu were across town. The girls who wore trousers had to wear a full wrapper over the trousers just in case they came across nasty old men whose only mission was to curse girls who strayed from the "norm".

In fact, we did learn that there was a rule in Sagamu, large as it was and it probably having the largest community of Hausas from the North in the South, women were forbidden to wear trousers.

So, imagine my surprise 30 years on, learning that the local authorities have outlawed the wearing of trousers by women in Sagamu. It makes me feel that the cocoon of my secondary school which was on the outskirts of town then, just on the edge of a forest was oasis of freedom of expression and the emancipation of the rights of women.

Sagamu is a town of quite learned people, one does have doubts about its sophistication in the light of this development and obviously the misconception that education can bring enlightenment to people steeped in the tradition of dominating not only their wives but extending that mantle of domination to cover everyone of the female gender, it saddens and it is shameful.

This is a human-rights issue, but I would not be surprised if a bible-thumping person comes up with one verse about women in men's clothes but none about men in 40% cotton and 60% polyester shirts. Shame on you! Sagamu.