By Ayo Kehinde
L-R The MC, Prof J Pepper Clark, a guest, Aluko’s son, Seye, Wale Babalakin, President of GCI, Prof Sowande, Prof Soyinka, Prof Osofisan and other members of GCI Exco
Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, Prof Femi Osofisan, and Prof Bode Sowande were on Sunday in Lagos honoured alongside others by their alma mater, Government College, Ibadan, GCI, for their distinguished carriers and creativity that have impacted their environment and beyond.
Others on the honour -roll call were Eng. Timothy Aluko; Ben Enwonwu; Cyprian Ekwensi and Dr. Christopher Kolade,
Aluko and Ekwensi, late, were writers like the trio of Soyinka, Osofisan and Sowande beside their profession of engineering and pharmacy respectively and career in public service, while Kolade is a distinguished ambassador, broadcaster and boardroom guru. Enwonwu, late, is Nigeria’s first professor of fine art, was an artist, painter and sculptor.
The award event took place at the Ade Ajayi Auditorium at the University of Lagos.
Prof Soyinka top, Prof Osofisan, top right and Sowande, bottom, receiving their awards
Coming at the college’s 90th anniversary being marked by the its Old Boy’s Association, president Wale Babalakin, made the point that, “ the school, renowned for breeding young men of excellent leadership qualities and exceptional professionals have been more recognized as having produced first rated engineers, scientists and scholars.
Currently, GCI, he said, has the highest number of recipients of the Nigerian National Order of Merit Award , the highest academic prize in Nigeria, namely, Ben Ewonwun, Oladipo Akinkugbe, medicine; late Justice Akinola Aguda, law; Prof I. Ifedayola; Wole Soyinka and Femi Osofisan”
He said the association would honour many other distinguished old students with time.
Harping on the theme of the anniversary celebration, the need to reform education in Nigeria, he said the association has committed N500m to rebuilding GCI, motivated by the desire to have a “model school that counts, that is a template of what a proper school should be”.
The award presentation was preceded by a 2-hour drama performance of an adaptation of Soyink’a Trials of Brother Jero; Osofisan’s No More the Wasted Breed and Sowande’s Mamiwaters Wedding, by Kininso Koncept, a professional young People’s Art and Theatre Performance Company, to the applause of the audience.
Responding to the award, Soyinka said it was a very “nostalgic moment” for him and thanked the “association for keeping the flag flying.”
Osofisan, currently a distinguished professor of Theatre Arts in Kwara State University after retiring as professor of Drama at the University of Ibadan in 2011, expressed doubts about the association’s intention to restore the college to its old glory. “We hope we would be able to restore the school, but I have my doubts. That generation is gone, values have changed and we may not be able to raise the money to restore it”.
Sowande, Head, Department of Performing Arts and Music of Ajayi Crowther University, went down memory lane and recounted how happy he was to share the stage with Soyinka whom he had admired since his childhood, narrating how he had cut out Soyinka’s photo and pasted it on his college locker in “admiration of my great mentor and inspiration who blazed the trail and set the standard for us…”.
Mr Seye Aluko received the award on behalf of his late father.
The celebration will round off with a public lecture of how to revive the power sector in Nigeria, at the same venue, on Wednesday.
