26th of December 2016 wasn’t just an ordinary day for the Alakoto High School Old Students Association(AHOSA) pioneer set. It was a day worth remembering as old school mates reunite after 30 years of being torn apart by the vicissitude of life. That afternoon, men and women from different walks of life elegantly dressed, thronged the Forever Friends Event Centre Festac town which was the venue for the reunion
The atmosphere can be described as that of old friends who had lost touch with one another for decades. In their pleasant camaraderie reminiscent of their school days, these Alakoto High School Old Students, cheered and threw jabs at one another, danced like tomorrow was nonexistent and recalled old memories of yester years with nostalgia.
The emcee of the event who happens to be one of them, tried to calm them down amidst the prolonged exchange of pleasantries.
According to Derinola Padonu, Chairman Planning Committee for AHOSA reunion,:” We left the school thirty years ago to be precise 1986 and since then most of us, may be about 95percent of us haven’t met since then.There are somebody here who met for the first time 30 years after we left school.So we decided to meet together as friends, the friendship we had then, secondly we also want to see what we can do together for our school.We started reaching out to another another via Facebook.
I registered the page Alakoto High School on Facebook so I started contacting one or two people and started searching . I was able to get over 15 people . Then when Whatsapp came up we moved to whatsapp and started planning from that forum.The Excos have come on board now so the first thing is to sit down, have a constitution that will help us to know our aims and objectives.
Our plan is to see how we can improve the welfare of the students that are currently in school.If possible, get some infrastructures then some of our members who are not doing well, we want to see how we can help one another .”
Speaking on why he took them 30 years to reunite, he says:” Intially when we left in 1986, there started an association but it didn’t go too far.Most people were not doing well so it died after that period. Eventually, it came up again. The interest came up again and we started contacting ourselves. We didn’t deliberately drop it . Thank God communication is better now.
And they showed off their fashion sense
Watch the highlights of the reunion below
https://youtu.be/MycseoxtGJA