November 1988. Just a normal day in our class, SS 1:1. We are all adjusting to taking new subjects like Chemistry, Physics and Biology and other less stressful subjects like Economics which seems to be easier as the person taking this class was great at what she taught and more. I will leave what the more is to your imagination and intellect. There were harder subjects like Further Maths that we were made to believe was tough but we had no teacher. Thank God for youth corpers. One of the ones posted to our school was good at Mathematics and decided to take Further Maths for us. Great; isnât it? On the other hand, it happened to be the son or nephew of our Principal, Chief ERA Babalola. Chills in our spines ...
For those of us that enjoyed maths, this was our class. Mr Babalola Jnr. was good at what he was teaching and he was even generous with his marking. We were constructing angles and some low-level trigonometry that term and he was generous to award marks for neatness. Why? It required good thinking to construct a 52.5 degree with a compass and not mess up the paper you are drawing on. Few got to the answer and fewer, in a neat way. So there were people getting 27/25 marks which more than the attainable score. Some of us boosted our scores by neatness if we did not get all the questions. It was nice of him to organize a quiz between the classes that year but that is a story for another day.
This fateful day, we were all in class and Mr. Babalola Jnr was not really happy with us. We were not doing well as a class with differentiation that day. Not sure if there was more to it but he was really agitated by our attitude which was unusual of him. He finished the lesson abruptly, with some level of threats that he was going to deal with us. Of course, as teenagers, we laughed it off and with a few minutes of a free period, we started making noise or playing about. Mr. Babalola Jnr. thought we will remorse and try harder with the spare minutes to learn but is there any teenager that did that? We all fell into 3 categories:
Those that got it first hand and do not need to bother
Those that partially got it but needed to review but will never do it immediately
Those that will not get it and will not bother to try
You can all see that there was no chance of revision immediately. Unknown to us, he was observing from afar and was even more agitated by what he saw. The next day, he turns up with a pop quiz in which he stated that if anyone scored less than half of the scores were going to be flogged that day đ€ą. And guess what? More than half of the class got less than half. Mr. Babalola Jnr. was ready for us with sticks and started beating people. Of course, it hurts but he was not Klutse. So there were more that could bear it more than others. He was making his way through those standing up quickly and then got to Egbon Gbenga.
Egbon Gbenga. He joined us at the beginning of the term from Ilorin. Very quiet and unassuming, Egbon Gbenga kept a low profile because he did not want to be noticed for obvious and various reasons. He was older than us, he was an SU (Scripture Union) person, his moustache that was curling like Hercule Poirot and his tissues? They were stronger, bigger, and tighter than Egbon Gani đ±! And he had to wear shorts as well! Egbon Gbenga chose to sit at the back for some of these reasons ...Well, back to the story ...
Mr. Babalola Jnr. proceeded to Egbon Gbenga as he was standing. He was astonished to see someone like him in the class. At the same time, he could not back down because he will lose face with the rest of the class. We were all staring to see what he will do and he knew it. So he decided to give him one stroke and to us, give us a speech.
You cannot put people like this guy into trouble. You need to get on with your work so that we are not in this situation. As you can see, Gbenga is a little bit older than you guys and does not need this. He is much closer to your age than mine but older than you guys...
Egbon Gbenga was đ„ș but đĄ. In other words, unamused. As Mr. Babalola Jnr. finished beating us all, leaving most of us still standing, being punished, and leaving the class, Egbon Gbenga raises his hand and asks to speak to Mr. Babalola Jnr. A bit startled, he agreed to step out of the class and listen. From the window, we can see that our teacher was getting pale and we do not get the foggiest idea of what was the cause. Suddenly, Mr. Babalola Jnr comes back in and starts to apologize to Egbon Gbenga. What đ đżââïž! He failed like others and now an apology? He then comes in and Egbon Gbenga goes to his seat and he makes an open apology to Egbon in front of us and states that he should be respected more and he may get preferential treatment from time to time. Why? Mr. Babalola Jnr just found that his assumption the Egbon Gbenga was just 1-2 years older than us was wrong and he got told by Egbon Gbenga what his real age was and why he is in our class! Mr. Babalola Jnr just realised that they were age mates and deserved some respect despite the fact he was in our class and it is just opportunity that has put him in this position.
Age... does not really signify much... what we achieve is what really matters. Ibanuje lojo ori, ipo lagba...
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