As far as the Commodore could determine, no rules of the Club had been broken. Besides, the actual venue of the meeting was on the water about two thousand metres away from the boundary of the Club right in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Furthermore, the only way to reach the venue was to walk (no boats; no ferries; and no helicopters). Only those Trustees of leading colleges who had mastered the delicate art of walking on water were able to attend the meeting at which very profound advice was given to Bashorun J.K. Randle.” It is common knowledge that to survive as a Trustee of Old Boys’ Association of certain schools and colleges you need more than bullet proof vest for protection. You need to master “aquamatics” – the art of “abseiling” on water. As the late beloved Chief Folarin Coker (ex-CMS Grammar School, Lagos) used to admonish the uninitiated; “Etirinkannkan” !! meaning You haven’t seen nothing yet.
As for the diplomatic community, one of the Ambassadors has summed up matters as follows:
“This is all very bizarre. What we have been able to download from the website of the Randle family is as follows:
“BojuBoju O.Oloronbo. Se kin si ?”
Read A;so: Epe and the Greater Lagos train
(Let us all close our eyes. The demon/masquerade is on his way. Should I open my eyes and confront him ?)
(i) Thomas Randle –
Haberdersher; importer of paints from Portugal (“Baba Oloda”). He lived at 3, Onikepo Street, Lagos and his shop/warehouse was at ItaFaji, Lagos.
(ii) Dr. J.K. Randle was born on 1st February, 1855.
Read Also: #BoJuBoJu @ Lagos
He won gold medal in surgery in 1888 at University of Edinburgh. He bequeathed the “Love Garden” (now known as MUSON Centre) and the Dr. J.K. Randle Swimming Pool “to the good people of Lagos for their peaceful enjoyment and recreation.” He founded Nigeria’s first political party, the People’s Union in 1908.
He died on 27th February, 1928 and he bequeathed huge endowments and scholarships to schools and universities for the less privileged.
The influenza pandemic raged in Lagos from 1918 to 1919 when
“The 1918 Influenza pandemic was one of the most deadly in world History. It was caused by an H1N1 virus with a gene of avian origin. It spread worldwide between 1918 and 1919.
The total number of deaths of the pandemic was at least 50 million worldwide. According to the Public Record Office London, the influenza hit Lagos on the 14th of September 1918, four years after the Amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates by Lord Fredrick Lugard.
The spread in Lagos was fast and devastating such that in the first two months the causality figure was enormous – Lagos lost 1.5% of its 81,941 population.
Read Also: #BoJuBoJu @ Lagos (2)
Inhabitants around the seaports of Marina and Apapa, especially seamen working on ships docked on harbour ports were one of the first sets of people to be infected with this virus and from that point, it spread to the hinterland and majority of people on Lagos Island.
The Colonial government swung into action by creating different means of spreading information, educating people on how to best stay healthy during that period. House to house disinfection was also done to ensure the safety of people of Lagos.
Still, people from Lagos reportedly fled the infested town to other parts of the country. Since the train was the major means of transportation back then, it was a little shocking that in no time the virus spread to Abeokuta, Ibadan, Illorin, Bida, Jebba, Zaria, Kano, and Bauchi.
On October 14, 1918, the flu was detected in Onitsha, where a large number of people got infected and died due to the virulent nature of the virus, with insufficient health care to combat it. By December 1918, it had spread all over the country. Right from the first outbreak in Lagos, the colonial authorities worked hard to combat it, but it spread due to the migration of people from infected areas to other parts of Nigeria.
By mid-1919 the pandemic came to an end, as those who had been infected either died or developed immunity against the virus.
During the colonial times, some parts of Yoruba land and other places in the hinterland of the country witnessed plagues and outbreak of diseases which claimed hundreds of lives. People sought native medicine and other unorthodox means to cure these illnesses.
One interesting case of an unorthodox approach to another epidemic, Smallpox, was the case of Dr.OguntolaSapara Williams in Epe. Epe, a small town off the coast of Lagos, was hit by a smallpox epidemic in 1897.
The magnitude of the epidemic was so severe; the death toll was more than the community had ever recorded from any disease ever.
Dr OguntolaSapara Williams, the first native appointed assistant surgeon was posted to Epe to help out with the people of the town. While at this posting at Epe, Sapara took the unorthodox step of joining the local smallpox cult with the motive of understanding their operations and eventually terminating their activities which he suspected was not helping the small community. This came about as a result of blackmailing the cult members who would take scrapings from skin rashes of actual smallpox cases and apply them on the skin of uninfected persons.
In his words: “In 1897 when I took charge of Epe district, the town of Epe was known as the hotbed of the small-pox epidemic. Finding that vaccination and other precautions seemed to fail, I joined the cult and having got into the mysteries I summoned the small-pox priests together and threatened them with prosecution for disseminating the disease and used perchloride (sic) of mercury solutions. They left the town through disgust and since then, up till the time I left Epe, vaccination had scope for doing good work and then the town enjoyed immunity from smallpox which was hitherto unknown”
One major aftermath of this situation was that the colonial government enacted the Witchcraft and Juju Ordinance in 1917 and made the worship of Sopona (the Yorùbá god of Smallpox) a crime punishable by fine and imprisonment.
