TO God be the glory. I am alive to see this once in a lifetime event. I have no doubt in my mind that this expression captures the feelings of most of us who are privileged to see the Ibadan Grammar School Centenary, the Centenary of our great alma mater, one in the league of the 10 oldest secondary schools in Nigeria and certainly the oldest in Oyo State of Nigeria.

Most of us cannot help but feel that indeed it is an august event to be cherished in the gamut of our existence. Most of our cherished members who had been part of the Ibadan Grammar School family would have loved to see this day. But sadly enough, it could not be so. One of such prominent one among them was the great Alex Ibru the founder and chairman of The Guardian newspaper. For those of us who are privileged to see it, happily for us including Goodie Ibru, the highly esteemed Chairman of the Board of Trustees of our alma mater, one could imagine the sense of fulfillment that must attend the experience. It is like witnessing the turn of a new century or more importantly, the turn of a new millennium that happened in the lives of many of us just over a decade ago.

We can also liken it to the cycle of the Halley’s comet, which comes once in every 76 years and which most people can hardly see twice. To our members who are no longer with us today to celebrate this august event, we thank God for their lives. In humility and solemnity, we carry their memories with us. They will always be with us in spirit as they continue to remain perpetually with their maker.

It was the very first secondary school in Oyo state. The laying of its foundation was on the 31st of March 1913. (the significance of this day for us today as a Christian Anglican-based school is that it falls on Easter Sunday). The British Empire undoubtedly was the most influential sovereign in the world at the time with its tentacles heavily present in what was then southern Nigeria where Ibadan, the capital of what today is known as Oyo state was located. The British Empire with its enormous influence around the world claimed to champion the cause of civilization. As controversial as the claim may be, this influence was adequately represented on the day Ibadan Grammar School was established. The representative of the British Monarch resident in Ibadan was there. Civilization is about culture, finesse and civility. These qualities of civilization constitute the universal fabric of a true society. Since inception the calibre of people Ibadan Grammar School had churned out symbolized culture, finesse and civility that conformed with universal best practices. We are not saying that we are saints. Like every other human beings, we may have flaws that may be detected by those whose specialization is to find weaknesses in their fellow human beings. What I am saying is that it could be said with authority, pride and with out apologies that Ibadan Grammar School’s products in the last one hundred years have been in the forefront among those who had shaped the destiny of the Nigerian nation to date.

We are using this medium too, to salute the heroic efforts of other institutions in what they might have done in their different ways to contribute to the making of Nigeria and I say more power to their elbow and God bless them all. However these institutions may just have to give it to us that this is our year, a significant year, our centenary year. It is to be believed that some institutions must have sprung up during these last one hundred years but along the line had gone back into oblivion. After one hundred years Ibadan Grammar School is still growing and moving from strength to strength. Its roots are firmly fastened to the ground. Its stem, robustly sturdy.

The universal fabric of Ibadan Grammar School at its inception could be said to have influenced its cosmopolitan disposition as it was developing to take its position in the comity of worthy institutions. From the way the school continued to evolve into its mission it was clear that the visionaries behind the development of the school had and understood the world view of education. They knew that education  in the best tradition of the word must be broad based. It must not only include the academic and the intellectual, the moral and the spiritual, as well as the physical, above all, it must never be parochial in such a negative way that must affect peaceful co-existence and the brotherhood of man.

In this respect Ibadan Grammar School which could be regarded as the brain child of the Anglican Christian communion spear headed by the late Bishop Alexander Babatunde Akinyele never discriminated in its admission policy. Although as a student of the school you were expected to participate in the  Christian religious ceremonies of the school. The truth of the matter however is that it does not translate into any attempt to convert anybody into Christianity. The compulsory participation of every student was to fulfill all righteousness. Nobody was ever compelled to change religion. In this sense, many Muslims, animists and probably atheists passed through the wall of Ibadan Grammar School safely with their beliefs if they were still interested in them. The unwritten principle of the school no doubt is that by the time you leave Ibadan Grammar School, if indeed you are a Mountaineer as the Ibadan Grammarian is typically known, you will carry out of that school in your character, the stamp of culture, finesse and civility. To our mentors, that is good enough to show case you as a child of God even if you don’t call yourself a Christian. Christianity in its true concept should be nothing more than that.

Ibadan Grammar School as I said from inception seemed strongly to have a world view of education. Students are not only admitted from across Nigeria dating back to almost eighty years as far as my research could carry me, they also come from neighbouring countries. In my own time in the school two white Britons were actually part of the student body. The beautiful experience that formed my lot from this cosmopolitan nature of Ibadan Grammar School and which many of my compatriots shared through their own experiences too, is that if the world sincerely allows it, it is certain that people from diverse backgrounds could live in brotherliness, peace and harmony.

As it is typical among human beings there were fights among students in my own time as you would also get among brothers and sisters. Indeed that was the nature of these occasional fights among the students of Ibadan Grammar School. It was in the nature of what you get among siblings because we were indoctrinated well into an orientation that saw us as brothers and sisters. I could never recall an occasion when there were fights among students and it was attributed to ethnic differences or religious misunderstanding as it could also be. I am of the Yoruba stock. I had many seniors in the school from the other ethnic groups. If you offended them, they would ‘deal’ with you and you might sweat. But it just never crossed my mind that somebody from a ‘foreign’ land had come to ‘deal’ with me on my own soil. The climate of orientation in our school was that rather than see the incident from such a parochial perspective the senior would rather  remind you of what some of your older siblings or elders at home do to you  when you misbehave. That exactly was the perspective from which you perceived him too – another brother or sister as the case may be. Albeit an extended one.

We have to give a lot of kudos to our mentors in this respect. They laboured very well to mortify the embers of prejudice and discriminations. Ibadan Grammar School was one school where you have children of prominent politicians from diverse colourations and while their fathers were fighting each other bitterly on the political terrain, their children in Ibadan Grammar School would be playing among themselves beautifully. In this significant respect I have to single out Papa Alayande .


Today by the grace of God in this significant centenary year, that same ‘boy’ sits eminently as the national president of the Ibadan Grammar School old students’ association. Papa Alayande did not stage manage it. He had long been dead before it happened. God indeed moves in mysterious ways. He surely has a foot in our almamater. The motto of our school is Deo et patriae meaning ‘for God and our father land’. The school indeed is for Him and our entire fatherland.


During Papa Alayande’s time, the sporting life of Ibadan Grammar School was very vibrant to the point where the products of the school were a force to reckon with even up to the national level. Whatever were needed by us to make us stay formidable were never denied us. In my own time we did not win the vital football cup but we could boast of the fact that Tesilimi ‘thunder’ Balogun was our footballcoach. That was a prolific footballer of his day who has a prominent stadium named after him today in Lagos. Although we might not have won any vital football competition in my time it was during the time of thunder Balogun as the school’s football coach 1968/69 school year that Felix Adedeji popularly known as ‘thundi’ the school’s football prefect  in 1969 came into limelight. He was not only adjudged the best school boy football player in Nigeria, at that point in time he was already playing for a top first division team based in Western Nigeria. One of our expatriate American tutors Mr. Johnson was instrumental in the virile development of the basketball in our school such that not long afterwards in 1967, we won the national championship. Ibadan Grammar School was a leading school in lawn tennis in my time as the coach of the school was the Nigerian champion and the international star of the time, Thompson Onibokun. It was a time when Tunde Oremule from Ibadan Grammar School was a shining lawn tennis star at the national level.  The school’s table tennis prowess was such that we produced quite a number of national champions. Two of them Babatunde Obisanya, went on to become the national table tennis coach and Brigadier General  Jide Adebiyi(rtd) went on to become the first Director  General of sports of the Nigerian armed forces. Boxing as a sport thrived very well in my days at Ibadan Grammar School.


Our social life was an admixture of the modern and the traditional. ‘All work and no play’ as they say ‘makes jack a dull boy’. In this respect our principals not only saw the need to allow us to hold appropriate parties in which other schools could be invited, we were also allowed to honour the invitations of other schools to their parties. There was the annual festival of arts and culture introduced into the school in 1966 in which students were involved in competitions to showcase cultures and traditions from the various parts of Nigeria


As the saying goes ‘the lives of greatmen teach us how to make our own lives sublime ‘. The element of greatness we saw in the activities of some us when we were in school  helped many of us to think of being great or being heroes. And so I am not surprised that in virtually all the noble areas of human endeavours in Nigeria today the presence of the mountaineers (As Ibadan Grammar School Students are called) could be felt. I have earlier mentioned the two Ibru brothers. There is also Mike Adenuga, the chairman of Globacom. Very early in the life of this democracy late Bola Ige exchanged baton with Segun Agagu in the ministry of power as one minister handing over to another. They were both from Ibadan Grammar School. A similar scenario almost played out recently even among female old students. Although Inumidun Akande did not go to Ibadan Grammar School but her husband chief Bayo Akande  a prominent Ibadan chief did. She however handed over as chief judge to Ayo Philips in Lagos state. Ayo Philips herself is married to an old student of the school. The intellectual muscles our old girls are endowed with is highly visible in the judiciary as the current female chief judge of oyo state Teju Adeniji is also an ex-student of Ibadan Grammar school as well as Olateru-olagbegi before them an old student was also a female chief judge of ondo state. Dimeji Lawal from Ibadan Grammar School was there in the team of the golden eaglets that won the maiden edition of the junior world cup. It is personally a thing of pride and joy to me to know that the symbol of the Nigerian nation and our unity the Nigerian flag was designed by Pa Akinkunmi who is also an old student of Ibadan Grammar School. The list is endless but rather than make us cocky  the heights we are reaching continue to remind us of the sense of humility that was part of our training that without God man is nothing and we must continue to thank God for the opportunity He gave us through Ibadan Grammar school to serve humanity at positions of responsibility As we look forward to the next one hundred years we pray that the school will continue to grow from strength to strength and that its product will never be found wanting. We thank God Almighty for everything as we Mountaineers congratulate ourselves on this august occasion Deo et PATRIAE! up school!!.

Ayo-Vaughan is the Ibadan Grammar School(IGS)

Class 65-71 set Chairman, (IGS) Centenary

up school! I rep 2006 set..... I met Rev Dr. s .o. oke as the principal..