Students of the Babington Macauley Junior Seminary School (BMJS), Adamo, Ikorodu, on Friday, December 6, 2019, paid a courtesy visit to Oba Kabiru Shotobi, Ayangbure of Ikorodu, at his palace in Ikorodu.
The students, who are in Senior Classes, were about thirty (30) in number and were led to the Ayangbure Palace by a team of the school staff headed by the School’s Spiritual leader, Rev. Oshiyomi P. A.
They were warmly received on their arrival by the palace aides who led them to the main hall of the palace where they were seated as they curiously waited to meet the monarch who joined them a few minutes later.
The Head Boy of the School, Mofeoluwa Ajileye, while briefly explaining their mission to the palace, told Oba Shotobi that they had come to pay him a courtesy visit and also to thank him for all his support for their school.
He also thanked the monarch on behalf of other students and management of the school for attending the recently held graduation ceremony of the school.
The Spiritual Leader of the School, Rev. Oshiyomi P. A., while further explaining the reason behind the courtesy visit, stated that the visitation was in fulfilment of the promise he made to the students to take them round Ikorodu Division to tour important places if they perform well in the Cambridge O’ level examination they sat for recently.
He said that though, the results of the exam have not come out yet but that based on the preparations, comportment and academic progress of the students, the school believe that the students would come out in flying colours.
Rev. Oshiyomi told Oba Shotobi that the students specially requested to visit him to enable them thank him for his support and also tour his palace.
He expressed his appreciation to the monarch for standing by the school when three (3) of its students were kidnapped few years ago and on his last visit to the school.
After Rev. Oshiyomi’s address, there was a marathon interactive session during which the students asked various intelligent and human interest questions from the monarch who patiently responded to all of them to the satisfaction of the students and their teachers.
Oba Shotobi commended the students for asking to visit his palace, stating that their request shows that they are conversant with traditional institutions and also respect traditional rulers.
While expressing his admiration for the intelligence and confidence displayed by the students during the interactive sessions, he also commended the school management for impacting excellent academic, moral and spiritual knowledge in the students and urged them to sustain the trend.
The monarch also urged the students to continue to be of good behaviours, obey their teachers and remain focused on their studies in order to be successful in life.
In his response to a question on the challenges facing him as a king, Oba Shotobi said that the protracted killings by cultists in Ikorodu remains a serious challenge to his reign, adding that the involvement of the youths in cultism makes the situation more pathetic.
He advised the students to shun cultism and other criminal association capable of derailing their dreams for a better future.
On the request by one of the students for government’s attention on the dilapidated Adamo road which connects the school, Oba Shotobi assured them of contacting Hon. S. O. B. Agunbiade, the Majority Leader of the Lagos State House of Assembly and the representative of Ikorodu Constituency I, to facilitate palliative measures on the road to make it passable while promising to write to the appropriate authority for proper construction.
The visit was later rounded off with a tour of the palace as Oba Shotobi conducted the students and their teachers round various sections of the main palace and the newly built extension.Others present at the courtesy visit were Otunba Lamidi Gbadamosi, Chief Kayode Olomo, Baale Ojogbe, Mr. Ayodele Adeleye, Vice Chairman (BMJS), Mrs. Grace Akinyemi (Secretary BMJS) an Mrs. Justina Ademola.