[dropcap]I[/dropcap] am very familiar with OVERBROOK HIGH SCHOOL, in the “City of Brotherly Love” as Philadelphia, in the State of Pennsylvania is fondly called. I have been in and out of the school in the last fifteen years or so. The topography of the school is complicated; the structure, massive; alluring, if you approach it from the 59th Street; confounding if you are on Lancaster Avenue, coming from 52nd Street.
The school was built in 1924. And still standing. It was designed by Irwin T. Catharine. In 1986, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places, an action emblematic of a people with a sense of History.
[pull_quote_center]”In this great future, you can’t forget your past.”
– Bob Marley[/pull_quote_center]
ILESA GRAMMAR SCHOOL, ILESA formerly known as IJESA HIGH SCHOOL, is a beautiful inheritance bequeathed to my generation. As an Ijesa son or daughter, you might have attended Cherubim and Seraphim High School, Ilesa, like me or St. Lawrence’s Grammar School, Babalola Memorial Girls Grammar School, St. Margaret’s School, Methodist High School, Obokun High School, Muslim Grammar School, African Church Grammar School, all within the City of Ilesa, we all have sentimental attachment to Ilesa Grammar School because it bears the name of our City and represents the physicality of the sweat and efforts of our heroes past as well as PRIDE of several generations that followed.
Or if your trajectory had taken you through the beauty, serenity, discipline, glory and pride of Atakumosa High School, Osu; Ijebu-Jesa Grammar School, Ijebu-Jesa; Ijeda Grammar School, Ijeda; Ibokun Grammar School, Ibokun and other great schools across the length and breadth of Ijesaland, everyone of us, one way or the other could relate to Ilesa Grammar School for reasons that are more than obvious.
Thus, when Ogbeni Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola decided to take down the several historical landmarks of the school, he took away a lot of other things along with it. Aregbesola took away memories. He took away nostalgia. He took away references. He took away the umbilical cord that connects the vision of our fathers who founded the school to the pride of the generations that went through the great school.
Most importantly, Aregbesola took away History, that innocuous but all important experience, the depth of which encapsulates the wisdom, character and courage that tackled the daunting challenges of the past that could be instructive for the present and be the pathfinder that guides us towards the beautiful future we seek for ourselves and the generations coming after. It was an error forced by the egoism of an over enthusiastic planless change agent with blurred vision. It was an error of tragic proportions.
Aregbesola might have had good intentions, but because of arrogance and refusal of counseling, he became destructive rather than be a builder. As our forefathers often said, “Anukan p’ero l’ee ba yeye re sun.” Despite appeals from well meaning elders that included a former Governor, several retired Supreme Court.justices, retired vice chancellors and other eminent personalities who are old students of the school, Aregbesola, ignored them and even insulted some of them.
I have not met a single soul that was opposed to the development and or improvement of educational infrastructure of the schools in Osun State. But must such be done in a destructive manner? Must it be done in a manner to generate ill will or bitterness? Must it be done in a manner antagonistic to the desires and aspirations of the people?
Why must you erase the History of a people simply because you want to be seen as trying to leave a legacy of your own? Why must one be without the other? Why the intransigence despite appeals and plea for understanding from the alumni of the school and others of its ilk?
There is nothing, or rather, there is no change or development that Aregbesola wanted to bring about that could not be achieved with the preservation of the Historical landmarks of the great school. But because he was and still is ego driven and greed inspired, he was determined to have his way at all costs.
He did and ended up causing a lot of ill will, hurt, bitterness and resentment.
Outside Ijesaland, across Osun State in general, Aregbesola, like a furious plague rammed through the landscape destroying schools, destroying legacies, destroying History. Schools that were hitherto sources of immeasurable pride to communities were destroyed or significantly devalued.
Great schools; fantastic schools; schools of great repute and Historical importance have been turned into theaters of ridicule and embarrassment. Aregbesola turned them into halls of absurdities from whence sanity, decorum, courtesy, discipline, studiousness, tolerance and culture have taken flight. He remodeled the schools into caricatures, ghosts of their old beauties; formless, colourless, putrid, porous, lacking in identity and robbed of their uniqueness as well as character.
Schools like Fatima College, Ikire; Ayedaade Grammar School, Ikire; Olivet Baptist High School, Iwo; Olivet Baptist High School, Ede; Fakunle Comprehensive High School, Oshogbo; St. Charles Grammar School, Oshogbo; Oshogbo Grammar School, Oshogbo; Oluorogbo Grammar School, Ile-Ife, Our Lady of Apostle, Ile-Ife; St. John’s Grammar School, Ile-Ife; Otan Ayegbaju Grammar School, Otan Ayegbaju among several others.
What a sad, sad fate for our dear Ilesa Grammar School, Ilesa and others of its ilk. May this type of Aregbesola plague never ever be seen in Osun State again. Ase. Amen. Aminayaratu!
Remi Oyeyemi is a public affairs commentator. He can be reached by email HERE.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
