Tomorrow Saturday, 12th of August will by God’s grace be spent in the ancient town of Ile-Ife. The event is the Final Year Brethren dinner party of my beloved fellowship – Evangelical Christian Union. In 2001, my set in the fellowship had the same kind of dinner to thank God for sparing our lives through the years spent in that wonderful environment – one could not but remember the July 10 1999 episode when cultists killed 5 students.
I almost missed our FYB dinner due to some political complexities going on at that time on campus. I used to be a passionate politician in those days with a difference- I was one of the few Christian boys who thought that politics was not a birthright for thugs and imbeciles and at that period I was the campaign manager of the popular “have u eaten today”. We were almost winning but the DSM of those days will have nothing of it, so the election was disrupted, our supporters beaten and sent to the hospitals; while a search was on to get me at all cost. So, attending the dinner was out of it ‘cos I do not want the thugs to come and disrupt the dinner as I was in hiding at that time.
But luck shined on me that day in a very significant way. We had a Judicial council (Yap, I was a member of the third arm of govt) seating on that day and the plan was to get me from there. I actually decided to go after I was promised security throughout the seating. Those guys are very clever and they had another plan for me – the plan did not work and I actually exposed them so much that we reached a compromise that made me a free man with the promise that I will not be stalked again. I won’t tell you what I did to warrant that kind of compromise for those who understand DSM in Ife but I will tell the full story one day – which I can promise you.
So I went majestically to the dinner and we had a nice time really. I look back and I am happy that God has been so faithful and done us good. The future looks brighter and clearer. I hope and pray that the guys we will be celebrating with tomorrow will understand what it takes to be relevant in the larger playground that is quite different from the campus stereotype they are used to. One of the aims of getting some of use to Ife tomorrow is to achieve this goal of sharing with them the few things we have come to appreciate as requisite ingredients of making a difference to life.
We will get there!