Omotayo (Cornelius) Fakinlede (SJC 518: 1966-71)
Professor, University of Lagos

It was late in the year 1970. The prefects for the next year had been appointed. This included several of our classmates such as Segun Filani – Senior Prefect, Juwon Awosika, etc. It was only form five students that were normally exempted from regular housework which included cutting grass, compound cleaning, etc. A number of us, some of whom felt bad that we were not so appointed, refused to do housework and obey our classmates that had just been given power. We constituted ourselves into what we called “The Supremes of SJC”. We even went to the usual classroom front and took a group photograph and we made ourselves a rival power block. The new prefects could not control us and, I believe, they must have gone to report the matter to the Principal, Brother Thomas.
He came to hostels one afternoon and rounded all of us up; he had bought brand new cutlasses for each of us. He came fully dressed in his own Khaki on Khaki. Seeing our principal in his Khaki uniform defeated our ability to refuse to be so dressed. And he marched us towards the piggery and asked us to start cutting the trees for the firewood needed to make our meals in the school kitchen, himself leading the way! We did that, with him, every afternoon from 4:00 pm until the end of the year. That ended our rebellion.

Brother Thomas with Omotayo Fakinlede near City Hall, Toronto. June 2018

One late afternoon, as we were walking towards the piggery, Brother Thomas in front, the rest of us, no exceptions, followed to the usual workplace. I took my cutlass, pretending I wanted to cut off his head! The remaining pupils burst into uproarious laughter. I enjoyed it so much that I did it repeatedly, and we laughed. Brother Thomas looked back and asked: “Why are you laughing?” We all pretended there was nothing causing the laughter. He just went with us, made us cut the trees as we were supposed to do. And that was it. I needed to grow up many years later to realize that Brother Thomas was fully aware of my buffoonery; He was simply allowing us to have our fun. That was what we thought we were: The Supremes of SJC just because we reached the end of the year in form four!

NB. I have not been able to locate the photo we took at that time. It had the caption “The Supremes of SJC. Please if anyone can find it, it will be a good picture to post here.