Jimi Disu is a radio guy. On Sunday 11th August 2019 he hosted a fellow at the Classic FM Radio. No one in my household got the guest’s name. However, the guest who visited as a King’s College Old Boy, was characterised a prince of Ife, the Jerusalem of the Yoruba. So let us call him Omoba, Yoruba for prince.
It was a memoirist style interview. Poignant and full nostalgia, the product is a radio classic. For instance, Omoba memorably recalled how in his days at King’s it was a sacrilege to have made a grade three. And the reason was that the ‘’chosen,’’ that is the boys who passed the exacting entrance exams were just it, super brilliant. And adding to their native ‘’genius’’ was that the teaching was superb. Even more, the King’s boys were trained to be sophisticated in their ‘’ways and means.’’ He gave the signal, if bantering example, of their being socially groomed to so courtesy a common lady she did feel she is a bride for a king. 
Perhaps, the greatest point he made was that it was from academies such as King’s College that the leadership of other (progressive) nations sprout. That much is true, especially if we extended the idea of Kings College to its tertiary ends, the Oxfords, Dukes, etc. of this world.
As a remedy to today’s completely collapsed standards, Omoba suggested that the old boys may be on their way to founding a Kings College Old Boys Association, KCOBA, school. The idea is to bring back the excellence upon which they were trained.
To repeat, the session is a radio classic. But that was to the point Omoba remained a memoirist. At the moment he strained out to being a historian, he and his history sucked.
According to him, both impliedly and directly, it was angels from hell that came and ruined King’s College. He gave the example of a non-Kings Minister of Education, who sent a 50-pupil list of ‘’Please Admit’’ note to the then serving principal. That act was in complete disregard to official closure of admissions and the capacity of the extant infrastructure to carry the supernumerary. And both he and his host, Disu, agreed it was ‘’bad belly’’ jealousy of those who never made it to King’s but happened upon power. In other words, and to borrow from Haruna Mohammed, the ‘’Bida High School Boys’’ had taken over the country, ruled in vengeance against the excellence of the ‘’Barewa Boys.’’ And they totalized everything unto mediocrities. Barewa College is a King’s College equivalent/quality school in the North.
But is that what happened in historically? Did the King’s Boys not have a decisive hand in ruining their own mothers’ funerals, as Achebe would say?
Built on verifiable facts, the peoples who raped Nigeria dry, the peoples who ruined Nigeria beyond resurrection, are actually the King’s Boys. Let me repeat myself. My name is Ozonma Ogbugo na Oru not Igbo. Those who ruined Nigeria and are celebrating it – perhaps in their ignorance – are the King’s Boys. And this is the unimpeachable lore. All else is humor.
Now, the following are the confessions of a certain Nigerian court historian: ‘’The decisions at Aburi amounted to – in terms of the political and military control of the country – the country being governed as a confederation…. Prince Akenzua along with top permanent secretaries including… Phillip Asiodu… and Allison Ayida deconstructed in Lagos all that was agreed in Aburi…. Prince Akenzua discussed with General Yakubu Gowon and raised objections to what was agreed in Aburi. Gowon asked him to raise a memo to this effect, which he did….’’ https://opinion.premiumtimesng.com/2016/04/30/172557/
Anyway, it is public record that persons as Asiodu, ex-this, ex-that and certainly ex-King’s, have severally boasted how he helped truncate an all-parties Aburi roundtable agreement, for one pulled off by their partisan and intriguer delusions of greatness and grandeur.
Next, the following points are then important.
1. Asiodu, Ayida etc. who were fingered as having ‘’deconstructed,’’ that is regressed and degraded roundtable agreements into intriguer diktats, are ex-King’s. If you extended the Kings metaphor, even Prince Akenzua who attended Government College Ibadan, is an ex-King’s [type].
2. The British built their country and empire [for themselves and this is important] on the basis of the pursuit of civilization. And a civilization is only procured and sustained upon roundtables – that is agreements commonly reached and dutifully observed.
3. But the British were dubious to their connections, though not to themselves. That is while the British insisted on running their home turfs democratically, they exported all kinds of thuggery, duplicities, deviousness, etc. unto their subjects and colonials. A German writer got the hang on this:
‘’The 19th century was dominated by the British, the 20th largely by the United States. The British back then weren’t interested in exporting democracy and human rights, but rather in subjugating peoples to exploit them…. The colonialist ambition was referred to as Pax Britannica, even though British conduct had little to do with peace or human rights. The normative project applied only internally, and the United Kingdom became a model democracy.’’ https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/silence-on-hong-kong-signals-decline-of-the-west-opinion-a-1282273.html#ref=nl-international
There are two key planks here. First, the British were in it for others/colonials exploitation. Despite the ready and true accusation, the greater exploitation by the British was not material. Yes, they robbed us of our coal and bauxite, but their most damaging scars were epistemic. The British mis-educated and misguided our boys. And the worst of this British made rot must be the King’s Boys. To whom much is given….
Now, on the ground of logical analysis and historical outcome, one may state as follows. Not one single King’s Boy had or was given a proper education. Certainly, it is even safer to state on the basis of historical outcome, that none of the King’s Boys turned up a philologist or mathematician. If there are, where are they? Have they found the courage to indict their fathers who ruined their mothers’ funerals?
What philology and mathematics deliver as nothing else, are perspectives. First, if these Kings Boys had perspectives, they would have known that the British were mis-educating them, were treating them as barbarians and prodding them to remain one. As an adult the duty to know you were mis-educated befalls you, not your educator. He has served his own purpose.
We say these because despite the self importance of these Kings Boys, they allowed themselves to be given education without perspectives, without philology and without mathematics. Mathematics, it is well to restate, is about insight not numbers. In other words, numbers is the ‘’details work,’’ while insight is the ‘’frame works’’ of mathematics.
Meanwhile, the British as the German writer says, insisted on a model polity, a civilisation, for themselves. This is what explains the Brexit. Despite Boris Johnson’s buffoonery, as inputted, he was thrown up a Prime Minister, on the logic that what has been freely agreed upon, like Aburi, must be sacrosanct and binding even to the devil, if we are to sustain our civilisation.
Expectedly, there are no British Asiodus, Ayidas, Akenzus etc. to intrigue to destroy civilization, as to save allegedly, a country or boost their careers. Thus, while Brexit has been analysed by some powerful voices as a rolling-out British tragedy, yet civilization demands that Britain be ruined, rather than Etonians or Britishers breach civilization, or smash roundtables as their Nigerian counterparts intrigued to do. Eton is the King’s of the United Kingdom. Even worse, these Nigeriana King’s Boys turned fascist, turned Nazi, and rolled out and or countenanced guns and industrialized mass murder, genocide, etc. as policy to enforce their fancy greed and grab for power.
It is important then to state as follows. The British taught the King’s Boys the ‘’details work’’ but not the ‘’frame works.’’ Details work, like Einstein says, are the work of mental slaves not gifted thinkers, or philologists and mathematicians as is cognate here.
Finally, and this is also important. In frame-works genius you are better off destroying a country to save a civilisation, never vice versa. Countries are two a penny. In Africa alone we have 50 odd numbers. But all through humankind’s 10000 year odd history there has not been up to 10 civilisations worth the name.
But what did the Kings Boys do? They ruined a civilization to save a country, smashed roundtables to promote their undernourished logics. Alas, like the man in the now lost Mother A’Endu epic, they sold their scrotums to marry new wives. In other words there is nothing happening now, including the collapse of King’s, the herdsmen mayhem etc. that is not fruiting from what the King’s Boys did or did not do.
One last word. Perspective demands that we say that the British were adepts at the enterprise of ruining whole colonies, epistemologically. That explains why they promoted clericalism in the colonies even as Britain remained a scientific and industrial powerhouse; promoted historic thuggery for the King’s Boys while their Eton counterparts kept strictly to freely initialed agreements.
In all, Omoba is welcome. But that is only to the extent he remains a memoirist. Any attempts to historicise, may find him and his heritage docked. That is another way of saying, that we all should know the following: There is no way the ex-Kings who ruined whole civilizations, smashed roundtables, conducted and or approved generalized mass murder or genocide, may take up the cultureless task of saving a part thereof, of rescuing a self-collapsing King’s. The worms are in the King’s hearths. Yes, the hearths are burning, but it is all rotten. It is the heat of the compost lake, not of the anyaoku, the flaming eye of the sun. all else is humor. Ahiazuwa.