By Mary Nnah
One of the major desires in the minds of members of Methodist Girls High School Old Student Association (MGHSOGA) as their alma mater marked 140thanniversary recently, was for the present set of students to keep up with the legacy that generations past had laid down.
Speaking during one of the activities to mark the anniversary, Chairman of the Organising Committee for activities marking the school’s 140th anniversary and the Old Student Association’s 2019 reunion, Retired Major General Tilewa Amusu, implored the present set of students in the school, as well as the young generation in general, not to discard the moral values that the older generations have laid on ground.
She said, “I think we should look more at how generations can improve, such that the older people pass down the moral values to the young ones rather than just leave young ones to their own devices.”
Amusu said the 140th anniversary took weeklong activities between the school and the association, revealing further that activities kicked off majorly on the Sunday of that week with a play titled “Itan” (the Story) powered by the old girls association and acted by the students of Methodist Girls High School, which held at National Theatre Iganmu, Lagos State.
This was followed by a community service the next day. On another day was the prize giving day, followed by the cultural day on the next day and on Thursday was the inter-house sports and on Friday of the week was what the old girls tagged, “A day back at school”, during which the old girls went back to the school in their school uniforms and school bags, attended the assembly and went into classes afterwards.
On Saturday was two novelty matches involving the old girls and the female parents of the school as well as male parents and male staff of the school while the grand finale of the anniversary held on Sunday with a thanksgiving service at the Methodist Church Lagos, and finally with fund raising luncheon.
Speaking further on the need to preserve the legacies of the past generations, Amusu said, “140 years is a long time and the school is still standing. One of the lessons I think, the present students learned during the stage play on Sunday, was that generations are linked and so they should never throw away what happened in the past.
“They have to cherish the past and look forwards to the future, knowing that each generation needs the other one. So, when you say this person is old fashioned and does not know anything, it won’t help and even when the parents say the present generations are children, and cannot have a say, it still won’t help matters.
“I think that is part of the things that is affecting the fabric of our society now and it’s causing a breakage in the linkages that we need.
“My advice to younger ones based on the drama is that they should not write off their parents, parents should try to understand their wards, stop complaining, and create time to really mentor them. We need to look inwards to mend these gaps so that we can have better families, communities and Nigeria”, she noted further.
‘Itan’ according to the director of the drama, Ayo Jaiyesinmi, talks about unity using the issue of generational diversity to drive it home. It was the story of an old man rigid in his old ways and his son who belongs to the new school.
“You find out that there is a lot of struggles right now, we don’t understand them, they are too fast, too young and to the young ones also their parents are old fashioned, but I believe that God has created us in such a way that we need each other. Whatever the generation is we have our strength and weaknesses, but together we downplay the weaknesses and our strength prevails.”
President, MGHSOGA, Mrs. Yomi Afolabi who was overwhelmed with excitement said, “We need to celebrate with the school and also raise funds, because we have a project on our hands. We are building a new block of classrooms for the school, the old structure was pulled down in April this year because it was structurally defective and we need to rebuild this as part of our give back to the society. So, whatever funds we raise during the weeklong activities would be used for the building project”.
