MY ARREST AT DAWN.....

‘ARREST AT DAWN’

The arrival of dawn with the streaks of orange light seeping through my dormitory windows roused me back into reality.  It was the last day of the second term in March 1984 and as an early riser, I had already taken my shower and was ready to bedeck myself in the full school uniform before taking a brisk walk down to the office.  It was part of the regulations that on the last day of term and the beginning of term all boys wore the full school uniform.  I had barely placed my feet through my pair of trousers when one of the younger boys ran into my dormitory to announce to me that my office had been broken into!  The night before I had placed over four hundred naira, some of the takings from the tuck shop into the office safe.  We had set a budget in the Council to fully furnish the common room in fulfillment of the last of my campaign promises.

I dashed down to my office at the other end of the school under Hyde Johnsons’ house adjourning the dinning hall to establish what had happened.  I was panting, as I got nearer the office, the appearance of the broken and mangled locks of the doors sent a surge, spasms of shock across my face and induced a chill into my marrow which cascaded down my entire body.   I noticed the doors had been wrenched open, I rushed towards the safe where I had kept the money and ‘lo and behold, it was not there!’ All gone, vanished into thin air!  I gasped in shock!  It was steadily becoming apparent as the clock ticked away that we had been robbed!   Words were an inadequate description for how I felt, I was deflated, King’s College boys were not supposed to be thieves.  Thoughts flashed through my mind:

“What mindless person would do this to me?  Me a man of the people.”

I reasoned:

“I thought my people loved me?”

How naïve I had been, many must have noticed, that trade was brisk and booming in the tuck shop.  We had also organised lucrative film shows and a number of fund raising events, so it did not take science of the rocket variety to establish that the Council coffers were full to the brim and it was ripe for the picking.   Prior to my tenure, the tuck shop had become derelict and had been abandoned and we resorted to purchasing our snacks over the school wall near the kitchen from junior staff quarters.  Nego a dark skinned attractive girl, with beautifully enameled features, a daughter of one of the junior staff was on standby to sell various snacks.  She was very popular amongst the boys for a few other reasons.  We also had hawkers in front of the school gates.  ‘Mango’ the very dark skinned boisterous bald headed ice-cream vendor was the most notable.  ‘Mango’s pastime as he perched on his ice-cream bicycle seat was to get into altercations with day students at the school gate.  It is suggested that his stance was a pre-emptive action against the attempted pilfering of his stock and constant provocations from the boys. These altercations were so frequent that I always wondered how he ever made any money.  If we were lucky at lunchtime a vendor, Mrs. Osokolo, the mother of Obiora, one of my classmates came in as a vendor of delicious and tasty meat pies and cakes, delivered in her light blue coloured Mercedes Benz 200.  The pastries supplied were devoured like ‘hotcakes’ by the hordes of hungry boys in hot pursuit.

The truth was that we had planned later that day to bank all the proceeds accumulated.  I immediately alerted Mr. Fabiyi to the incident, he came running out, swearing left, right and in all directions and his legs flailing all over the place.  It seemed on this occasion that he was going to combust!  I was half dressed and completely beside myself and I had to wait at the scene of the crime. 

The PKC was duly informed as he arrived on the school grounds.  He came to inspect the scene; he did not say much and advised me that the police will need to be informed.  Within what seemed like minutes the detectives from the CID at the Lion Buildings arrived.   Yusuf Suleiman, one of my trusted aides, a brother of ’Femi Suleiman, a few other boys and I were rounded up as suspects and ordered to stay where we were in front of the scene of crime.  We were now officially suspects, the policemen got down to work and started dusting down the common room and the office premises for fingerprints and then we were matched off to the Lion Buildings, a few metres from the school in a single file.  Lion Buildings did not have pleasant memories for me because years before we had visited it with my mother when we went to report the soldiers’ brutality on my uncle, Professor Adetugbo.  The whole school gazed down at us as we matched through the footpaths, past the Council Chambers out of the school grounds through the gates and off to the Police Station.    I could not help but wonder:

“Which of the boys would betray me like this?”

It was the unkindest cut. We arrived at the Police Station and the process of obtaining our fingerprints and interviews was to last the next few hours.

In the space of six months, I believe the boys of King’s College, Lagos through its Students’ Council had risen to great heights and had transformed their lot.   They had starred their problems in the eye and confronted each and every one of them.   We now had a fully functioning Council, the production of the Mermaid (College Magazine) had began under the editorship of Kingsley Eze after three years in abeyance, the tuck shop was brimming with life and had become a source of constant revenue.  We had also started the refurbishment of the common room and we had a Council Secretariat, a small office, which housed the Secretary and the Assistant Secretary.  The threat of boarding house uniform had abated and the quality of the food had vastly improved.  We organised a successful Students’ Council Week with Mr. Akintunde Asalu invited to inspire us.  We had proven that we, even as boys could take responsibility and govern ourselves.  It seemed I had found my enduring purpose and power had now replaced sketching and drawing which had been my past retreat.

But in a boarding school with over 300 students, there was bound to be a few bad apples that would exploit our good fortune and turn it into misfortune.  I do not think I was remotely a suspect for the cowardly crime but the investigation had to follow its course and attempts had to be made at elimination in order to establish the culprits.   I had left the office very late the night before, so the crime must have occurred in the dead of the night when all and sundry were in deep slumber.

After seven hours of standing in the Police Station suddenly, we were told we were free to go, what prompted this I do not know but I have my suspicions, I believe they were closer to home.  Even as I write today, there are one of two names that spring to mind and I suspect bear responsibility for that cowardly crime.  I do hope they can at some stage in their lives come to terms with what they almost destroyed.   They almost truncated a dream, but our dreams of progress, of good triumphing over evil had been implanted over a century ago when the King’s College, Lagos motto was established as ‘a hope for light’.  The dream has always been certain to succeed because it contained the word ‘hope’ at the very end of it.

By the time, I left the school all the funds we lost had been replenished through more innovative schemes.  Akufo, the Head of the Social Committee and I were privileged to visit Chellarams on Broad Street, Lagos, an electronic cash and carry shop to purchase a brand new coloured television set for the common room.  I suggest this was a hallmark of ‘Panafism’, not power for its sake, but power to deliver and to transform.  There was massive jubilation as we returned to the school in a taxi with a brand new television set.  I may have been intoxicated with power, vindictive in deploying it, but I consoled myself that it was surely for the greater good of King’s College.  Later in the year, there was to be a complete rapprochement between the PKC and I at the ‘Speech Day and Prize Giving Day’.