Excitement as Owode Community Gram Schl Ogbomoso receives Santa Claus

Excitement as Owode Community Gram Schl Ogbomoso receives Santa Claus

Adebayo ADELEKE

Owode Community Grammar School, Ogbomoso, Oyo state, Tuesday was a beehive of activities as it delved into an extracurricular activity, receiving the Santa Claus otherwise known as “Father Christmas” in the school (from Rome) to bless the ecstatic students who enthusiastically received gifts of various kinds from the famed “gift merchant.”

“We had a nice time, a diversion from the usual stress of school,” the head boy, Christopher Adedokun, told ogbomosoinsightonline.com. “We finished exams last week and we are ecstatic about the staging of Father Christmas, this you can see visibly among the young students especially.”

The principal, Mr. Dayo Ajala, who was however not around, also said, “We held the programme to occupy the students after they finished writing their first terminal examination. Last week, we had a very interesting interclass football competition, which excited the students. The young ones always seek an outlet for their energy and if you do not provide a productive avenue for them the tendency is to engage in social vices, hooliganism and so on now rampant among students.

“So, both the football competition and the Father Christmas show are our ways of getting the students productively engaged after the rigour of the exam. And you can see the atmosphere is congenial.”

Comrade Ajala, who is the representative of Oyo state at the National Executive Committee of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) added that a carol will be staged Wednesday “and when the students go on holiday this week they will be issued their report card. The teaching staff have worked assiduously to prepare the report cards for the students. We only hope the performance record will achieve the desired goal, that is students will soberly look at it and improve and more importantly, parents and guardians will also find time to scrutinize the performance of their children and wards.”

The carol was declared open by a vice principal, Mr. Ezekiel Ayinde, a clergyman, and students were blessed and prayed for.

The “august guest from Rome,” upon arriving in the school, was greeted with spontaneous cheers, and drumming by the school’s band team. He paraded the premises borne on a car roof, his sack of gifts tucked in his costume, and from where he implanted himself on the car roof, he cheerily waved his hands at the surging students who showed their joy by dancing, before now retiring to an exclusive enclave for private reception of students and presentation of gifts.

“It’s a jolly good time,” another student concluded.