The life of the quintessential teacher Oshatoba (1927-2012)

As a writer, I must have, over the years, owed many a debt to a variety of sources; but for little mastery over English language, all of the credit must go to Chief Seth Ayodele Oshatoba, and in the final analysis, it is all in this one sentence: “Mr. Hart, who has a big hat, […]

As a writer, I must have, over the years, owed many a debt to a variety of sources; but for little mastery over English language, all of the credit must go to Chief Seth Ayodele Oshatoba, and in the final analysis, it is all in this one sentence: “Mr. Hart, who has a big hat, has a weak heart.” This was the very first sentence Chief Oshatoba wrote on the blackboard in our class exactly 43 years ago today; and I was about to get my first lesson in English phonetics without ever realizing it.

His subsequent analysis of that one sentence almost shattered all my English dreams. Did it then mean that I didn’t even know that which I thought I was on the way to mastering? I was thoroughly humbled, and I knew I fumbled but I didn’t despair, I just resolved that from that day onwards English language would not hold any secrets from me.

The book is a moving account of the single-minded doggedness of an individual in the pursuit of an ideal, not for its own sake, but as a means to an end, which in this case is the doing of good in the service of God and man. And for a variety of reasons Oshatoba’s life needs to be celebrated today, not just because it is a fulfilled one; but because of the uniqueness of that fulfilment; and, above all, because of its consecration and dedication to the glory of God.

[All this has been captured well in the book. After tracing his genealogy, it showed him growing up as a toiler on the land; later, as a determined lad with an insatiable quest for Western education, to the time he became a full grown man, a proud father and an accomplished teacher, after which he retired. But retirement for Oshatoba was to mean only a call to higher service—as an indispensable educationist, a gregarious man of God promoting virtue and discouraging vice, and a distinguished but apolitical statesman.]

For Oshatoba, virtue has become a way of life, and it is its own reward; and in the book, readers learn the real lesson of life—that nothing of lasting value can ever be achieved without sacrifice. And even that which has value loses meaning without the fear of God. And in the life of Chief Oshatoba, as has been said of life generally, we see how the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

While all the alumni of the many Oshatoba schools—in Azare, in Dekina, in Okene and in Ilorin—must thank Carrot Publishers for taking this long overdue, praiseworthy initiative in sketching and chronicling the outline of his life, and because of the unforgettable impact he has had on our lives, it must nevertheless be accepted that the definitive Oshatoba biography is yet to be written. This is just but a taster.

The first thing Oshatoba taught us—his students—was to tell the truth at all times, and then stand by it under all circumstances. That, for the teacher in him, was the only real foundation for good character. Thereafter, he painstakingly prepared us for selfless service, after having inculcated in us that value dearest and closest to his heart—self-discipline.

Oshatoba was the Supervisor-in-Chief of our adolescence and, therefore, in a very direct way, his biography is invariably also our own. If living in this world is a loan—and it is—all of us will be under obligation to repay; and, appropriately, therefore the writing of this foreword becomes  not simply a duty, it is a pleasure and a privilege, but a very inadequate payback to someone who lent us his life and all that it has afforded him.

Not that he had himself ever thought of payback, though sometimes in 1978 he came close to doing so. At that time, I was doing my national youth service in Ilorin when I discovered that he was the commissioner of education. I thought I had to pay my respects; and I traced his house but didn’t meet him at home. I left a note and went back to camp, promising to call the following day. But the ever-caring patron that he was, he wouldn’t wait for me to call back; he himself came to the NYSC camp. Unfortunately, we were out when he came; but before he left, he directed the chief inspector to post us to Odo-Ere to serve by way of payback. In the end, it was one of those who signed the note I left him, not me, his former student, who was sent there to teach.

And he did teach us. The pioneer class with which he opened the Azare school in 1966, and which he personally nurtured, recorded a 98 per cent success rate in the West African School Certificate examinations in 1970; and, for the next few years thereafter, while the Oshatoba mystique lasted, the school recorded many outstanding successes in both academic and sporting events.

But while he taught well, teaching is not what he does: it is what he is—the entirety of his life is nothing but learning writ large. He has the gift of the gab and a way of imparting what he knows; and he does it with great authority and unusual effectiveness, shaping the future of others with kind tenderness, just as much as he was himself shaped by the difficulties of his past.

His abiding concern for the welfare of his students was legendary; it always went beyond the call of duty. And the great trouble he often took to ensure the welfare of his students could not even be imagined by present-day principals. Whenever any of his students fell sick, he would drop everything and do whatever was necessary until they got well. For a very long time, many times had he ferried students at his own expense to Kano, a distance of more than 250 kilometres, in his car even for non-emergency treatment.

Against the practice of teaching European or world history, Oshatoba directed that the teaching of history in the new school must begin with a thorough knowledge of one’s local history. This proved invaluable to us; for there was no knowledge quite like self-knowledge—and we certainly wouldn’t have grown up with that type of confidence that could only have come with knowing who we really were. And he always gave credit where it was due. When, for instance, he pioneered the establishment of Government Secondary School, Azare in 1966, he named all the student hostels after the great teachers who had preceded him—as headmasters—in the school, even though during their times, it was only a primary school.

He is a very fair–minded judge in resolving disputes, a strict and disciplined disciplinarian—stern and swift in meting out punishment, but ever-ready and generous in giving his praise and in rewarding the deserving. His sticks and carrot are more to be seen as tokens of love and care rather than those of punishment.

A man of powerful presence, he is a He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed of sorts, but without any hint of coercion, and he is today remembered by his students with the greatest admiration and is held in affectionate awe by all of them.

Oshatoba is a man of strict moral uprightness and Spartan discipline, a man of total Christianity without the slightest hint of sanctimonious religiosity. The unanimous testimony of many who have known him closely is that he is one of the most Christ-like characters one can find anywhere in this world. He lived and let live: and he saw worship not in sectarian terms but as the way to God-consciousness; and he therefore saw to it that all Christian students were in church on Sundays and all Muslims in the mosque on Fridays. He spent all of his life in self-sacrifice, and that his students will be at pains to find in him that fatal flaw present in the character of each one of us—the flaw that makes us human. Few people have eschewed self interest to the extent that he has.

And in all the things he extorted his students to excel—whether it was punctuality or hard work, telling the truth at all cost or self-discipline, Oshatoba always led by example. He was in office before you were in class; he was hard at work long after you had gone to sleep; and he would never break even his own law or tolerate that you broke one. For his students, he was the perfect master and best example of a person living out his own precepts.

When the time for parting came, the last thing Oshatoba taught us as he left to go back home was to tell the truth at all cost—and stand by it—just as he had taught us at the beginning. And now, after more than four decades, it is easier for us to see and clearer for us to appreciate the fact that he is, indeed, the embodiment of the famous School Tradition that he coined and taught us—a tradition the very words of which have now become an inerasable part of our collective consciousness.

Truth at all cost—

The path we choose and follow:

Hard work, selfless service and self-discipline;

Virtues great, dear and just.

With due respect for age leadership;

With devoted loyalty to school and country;

We bow to serve God and man;

In humble actions and noble deeds;

Until the top of our ladder we reach;

And the height of our ambition attain.

Its words say it all: ‘the greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.’ And as Michelangelo said so did Baba believe—and, appropriately enough, he gave us a ladder all our own so that we could climb and aim high and higher. And that’s exactly what we did. What more could one ask of a teacher?