The unlikely heroes

I am so sure that our God has a wonderful sense of humour and nobody can convince me otherwise. It must be so amusing for Him to watch us, as we tell our children off for behaviour we were guilty of ourselves, just a few years earlier. Even though I have to admit that frustration is the more frequent emotion one feels whenever one’s children insist on misbehaving, still, their naughtiness can amuse one at times. If only they could see beyond the shouting and facade of anger and see what is really on my mind when I reprimand them sometimes. It’s just like déja vu to me. Kai! “Just like his father” dashes through my mind.

I will be the first to admit that I definitely went through a naughty phase at my boarding school. In fact most of my mates did. It got so bad that there came a time when we were banned from sitting with the rest of the school at meal time. We had our own separate table. What was it the headmaster said again? Yes, that’s it. I remember now. He said he didn’t want us to contaminate the rest of the boys. He called us, “the problem children”. However, this same headmaster and the house masters, knew exactly what they were doing when they decided to make a significant number of us house and school prefects a few years later. There is a belief that the surest way to catch a monkey is to use a monkey. That was precisely what they did.

The headmaster and his team knew we weren’t bad children. A little misguided perhaps, but our hearts were in the right place. Despite the obvious propensity to be naughty and mischievous, traits of leadership could clearly be seen in us. It was just a matter of them discovering how to get the best out of us; how to curtail our compulsive tendencies and to utilize our irrepressible spirit more positively for the benefit of the school and ultimately for ourselves. They were both wise enough to know and humble enough to acknowledge that they would only be shooting themselves in the foot, if they were to proverbially throw the baby out with the bath water. This bunch of unruly pubescent boys had a lot to give and merely needed redirection.

The teachers were aware of the fact that most of the rascally junior boys, much like us, were the sporty ones. They were the ones whose excess energy and testosterone rushes pushed them to do things that would eventually get them into trouble. Just like us. Like the monkey who knows how best to catch another monkey, we would know how to relate with them and rather than kill their spirit – which is essentially what makes them who they are and bestows on them that X factor – we would know how to cleverly tame their excesses and guide them to tow a better line. They would listen to us. Far more so than they would listen to a “goody two shoes” who has never done any wrong. We were the school heroes and so they had a special respect for us.

We saw our younger selves in them and this in many ways made the respect mutual. They saw in us, the gallant seniors they aspired to be in a couple of years; the ones openly celebrated for bringing sporting honours and glory to our school. Even teachers, perhaps subconsciously, often extended a degree of respect to us for this, as we were to all intents and purposes, the face of the school. We, the “problem children” of yesteryear were the ones our headmaster and teachers would boast about in the school prospectus in order to sell the school to prospective parents. We were the ones they would speak proudly of when chatting with friends or with their counterparts at other schools. We were the ones the junior boys hero worshipped. In fact, if we ever wanted to make a junior boy’s day, all we needed to do was to show him the slightest of recognition in front of his friends. Such a gesture would instantly make him the envy of his mates. The headmaster, whose responsibility it was to appoint school prefects, of course after due consultation with his staff, knew what he was doing when he picked the likes of us. The apparent misfits of yesterday who just couldn’t stay out of trouble had become the junior boys’ role models of today and like in life generally, the last thing anyone would want to do would be to disappoint his or her role model. The strategy worked.

Permit me to draw a parallel here with some people’s natural gravitation towards religious leaders who themselves had lived less than piously earlier in life but who somewhere along the line were fortunate enough to find God. I for one, find such people’s messages more real and infinitely more convincing. They have seen it all – done this, done that, probably bought the hat to say so too – and consequently assume a far less judgemental disposition. Why? Because they have been there before. In my view, there aren’t many people out there who innately relate to the idea of a perfect person. What makes a hero indeed heroic is not just that he defeats the villain but that he finally finds a way to subsume his own demons. Against all apparent odds, he conquers his own shortcomings or character defects, which had always manifested as stumbling blocks in his endeavours. Our emotional connection to heroes and what instinctively drives us to root for them to succeed derives from what we see as their uncommon strength to push on and push through despite obvious limitations. The appeal is not that they are infallible. Indeed it’s the opposite. They give us hope in ourselves that despite our imperfections, success is possible.

We need to build a consensus of ownership of the Nigerian project. My school’s management knew that the best way to tame our excesses was to make us feel we had a stake in the school. That way, we would jealousy guard its reputation and actively work for Its success. By simply getting us to buy into this project of making the school great, the battle was already half won. Remember. Heroes, by definition will always fight for causes greater than themselves.
Changing the nation…one mind at a time.

Akande is a Surrey University graduate with a Masters in Professional Ethics. An alumnus of the institute for National Transformation and author of two books; The Last Flight and Shifting Anchors. Contact: [email protected]