Mrs. Yinka Fagboro nee Ogunleye –1977/82 Set

I recall that I resumed at EKPACO precisely on September20, 1977, following which I was assigned to Room 2, EPU (Yellow) House. I was to serve a senior in Form 5 who gave me all her rules and regulations. When you were attached to a senior, you would wash her clothes, collect her food from the dining hall and generally treat her like a queen. After listening to her, I prayed to God for help.

Much after we settled into a routine, I found myself in a group of 10 girls who were either boarders or day students. We were jolly good friends we were. We normally woke up as early as 5am to do our chores of cutting grass, fetching water for our seniors and preparing for school. Within our group, if we found any letter by a toaster in our lockers, we would hold meetings after which we would look for the boy to beat him up.

Life in the school was a mixed bag. If you offended a senior, you had offended every senior around because all of them would gang up against you, especially if you were the rude type. You could serve punishment for a whole week, and you dared not tell anyone about it, not even the House Masters/Mistresses. If a Senior asked you for milk or any provision, you must be ready to give it with respect, and peradventure you did not have, you would provide one at any cost.

At EPC of that time, life in the hostel from Form One to Form Three was like living in hell fire, which made me feel like having my parents just around the corner to take me home anytime we closed for the day. There was a bit of respite when I was in Form Two by which time one also had juniors whom one could also punish but we were still subjected to unnecessary mental torture.

A male senior discovered my group of ten girls in Form One and added some boys to make up Social Children, which metamorphosed into a Drama Club. This made us famous in school and gave some seniors sufficient reasons to start picking on us. We would serve punishment for any minor mistake, even for coming late to the hostel.

We, however, became big girls in Form Three, the intermediate class. Forms Four and Five transported us to the level of queens which gave us more privileges to punish junior ones and have junior ones attached to us to ‘serve’ us.

Life in the Girls’ hostels was not much different from what obtained in the Boys’ hostels, only just that the experience in the Boys’ hostel was a bit horrible. We heard stories of how seniors could punish juniors by making them to kneel from 7pm to 3am. Imagine that!

Form Five puts you on top of the world.

I rest my case.