Childhood Friendship

I was at the Kingsize Place with my secondary school guys on Sunday. We had a stakeholders’ meeting in order to discuss the affairs of the Old Students’ Association of my Alma Mata. The meeting was a success, and it eventually turned into one of our many get-togethers. As the night wore on, and the musician serenaded our table with Old School tunes, I couldn’t help appreciating my childhood friends one more time.


I’ve had many friends in my life, but my secondary school friends still remain my best friends. These are the people I connected with because I knew what I wanted, and not because of any other motive. They were the ones I begged garri from, shared beds with, played pranks on, received assistance from, and gave my trust to. They were the ones who greatly influenced my choice of university and course. During one of his talks back then, the principal had said ''our best friends are the ones we make in secondary schools because the primary school friendship is characterized with naivety, while the university friendship is borne out of maturity. It’s only the secondary school friendship that has the innocence and motive of true friendship’’. How right he was!

Today, I can hardly recognize my primary school friends, while the university friends have all moved on. Every other form of friendship has its own category: colleagues, customers, brethren, or associates. For the few friends I have outside my secondary school friends, there’s always a barrier between us- decorum. True affection comes from back-slapping, nickname-chanting, friendly insults, and feeling ‘childish’ in the midst of other ‘kids’. This is the kind of affection I can never trade for anything in the world.

So, as I watched Lukman Baruwa dance to the old school music; listened to Ladi Ibikunle as he tried to persuade his wife to allow him buy a power-bike; and laughed with Yemi Kazeem, Tunde Adeola, Azeez Kanimodo and Nasiru Kasali, I knew I wouldn’t have had a better childhood experience without the JOGS Boys.