Peter Herbert Routely: A Smith Fashioning Out Of Gold Out Of Lead

¶ Peter’s Uncommon Teachership: Sample Testimonies on Some of the Students of His Time at Ila Grammar School.

¶ Michael Olatunde AJIBOYE recalled, “We were introduced to the subject (French) by no other person than the Principal, Peter Routley…That was the beginning of what was going to shape my life for ever”.

That was in 1962. Tunde is today an Emeritus Professor of French, a reputable author of many French textbooks for the use of students at various levels, an important community leader who once served as Chairman of Ila Local Government Council.

Peter H. Routley, installed as Chief by The Orangun of Ila.

¶ Peter Routley did not only admit Olayiwola Aderemi AWONIYI into Form 1 in 1963, but also went out of his way to literally beg the parents to find money for his fees because he felt that the young boy had potential.

After retiring from a very successful career in the private sector, Layi is today the Treasurer of the Peter Herbert Routley Foundation, a key community leader, a member of the Ila Local Education Board.

¶ Olushola Alake ABANIKANDA, in a display of adolescent rascality in his final year, disrupted the school assembly, an offence deserving summary expulsion from the school. Not a person to destroy any soul, Peter Routley overlooked the misdemeanour and allowed Olu to complete his course successfully in Ila Grammar School.
Olu later on in life became a successful lawyer, established a chain of schools named after the pioneer principal of Ila Grammar School, Dudley Reeves. Until his demise in 2021, Olu was a member of the Board of Trustees of Peter Herbert Routley Foundation.

¶ Julius Olufemi FAKEYE was among those admitted by Peter into Form 1 in 1963. After a very successful career in Accounting and Finance, Olu retired into politics; he is today in his third term (of four years each) as a member of Nigeria’s National Assembly (House of Representatives wing). He has attracted many infrastructural projects that enhance the development of the Ila Federal Constituency, including instituting a scholarship scheme for undergraduate students in Science and Technology related fields.

¶ It was then a serious breach of government regulations for a student in a secondary school to sit for external examinations for private candidates. In 1963, when he was in Form 3, Oyeniyi AKANDE secretly wrote and passed the West African Examinations Council’s General Certificate of Education (Ordinary Level). The stipulated punishment was to be expelled but Peter Routley, on hearing his case and in order to enable him complete his course early, instead gave him a double promotion to Form 5 in 1964, the first student to be so promoted in the history of Ila Grammar School.
 
Niyi is today the Chairman of Peter Herbert Routley Foundation; some four decades earlier, he had also served as the first old boy to chairman the Board of Governors of Ila Grammar School.
 
¶ Before Peter’s time, acts of fagging and bullying of junior students by their seniors were brutal, it instilled fear in the juniors and tended to damage their self-esteem. Peter stopped the obnoxious practice, thereby liberating the juniors.
 
¶ At inception, the school authorities had made a blazer part of the school uniforms. Peter saw it as unnecessary, indeed indefensible, in the hot tropical weather of Ila-Orangun and, so, he removed it. He also replaced trousers with short blue Khaki knickers and short-sleeved cotton fabric white shirts on top.
 
¶ By making Ila Grammar School co-educational, he opened the door for girls who, hitherto, lacked opportunities for attending secondary schools near home at Ila.

¶ Following in Peter’s Footsteps
The late Kola Popoola, Tunde Ajiboye and Niyi Akande were the first products of Peter’s to attend a tertiary educational institution to study French with a view to becoming French teachers. In January 1967, all three of them enrolled at Olunloyo College of Education, Ibadan, offering French and English. Kola and Tunde completed the programme brilliantly and later proceeded to have university degrees in French. Kola became a very successful teacher, producing good students from several public secondary schools across Nigeria where he taught for many years. Tunde went into the academia and has been flying higher and higher as a university professor, even helping governments to set up French villages across Nigeria. Niyi veered into another field but, at least along the line, he obtained a university certificate of proficiency in French.

¶ Karimu Atolagbe was the first among Peter’s French Class students to attend a university to read French. Not much later, he was followed by the likes of Hassan Adetunji, Caleb Falola, Moses Adeoye, Yusuf Adeniyi, Sikiru Ajao Agbaje. Both Hassan and Yusuf later served as the principal of Ila Grammar School at various periods respectively, while the others largely went into Government as administrators.

¶Peter’s Uncommon Philanthropy
If we thought that we had seen the last of Peter when he left Ila in December 1965, we were greatly mistaken. Some 51 years later, in July 2016, he again materialised, ostensibly revisiting us!
At the end of a week stay in Nigeria, he again demonstrated his usual kind-heartedness by announcing the establishment of an award scheme for brilliant but indigent students in Ila-Orangun in perpetuity!!! The Peter Herbert Routley Foundation resulted from that announcement. It has awarded scholarships to a total of one hundred and fifty-eight (158) from 2018/19 to 2021/22
Peter has also established similar philanthropic schemes in Adelaide University, from where he graduated, and at Kimbe High School in Papua New Guinea where he was the pioneer Principal after he had left Ila Grammar School.

¶ Peter, the Peripatetic Missionary, the Teachers’ Teacher
It is this easy-going, large-hearted, firm but fair disciplinarian that has turned eighty-eight (88) years old today, December 21, 2021.
We are happy to roll out the drums to sing a heartfelt HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our dear Otunba Sayedero of Ila-Orangun, Nigeria, a Member of the Australian Order—Chief Peter Herbert Routley.
We beseech Almighty God to grant him more healthy and happy years of life.
Please, let us shout three thunderous “Gbosa!” to our Papa Peter, the strong friend of his students all over the world, the lover of the poor, a teachers’ teacher, a Principal Emeritus.
Happy Birthday to Chief Peter Routley, the Peripatetic Teacher and a Missionary par excellence

© Ila Grammar School Old Students’ Association, Ila- Orangun, Nigeria.
 

PETER@Ila: A Summary:

1. Peter Routley assumed duties as the THIRD (3rd) Principal of Ila Grammar School, Ila-Orangun in January 1962
2. He left Ila in December 1965, after the first set of Ila GS’ students had written their West African Senior School Certificate Examinations.
3. He revisited Ila-Orangun in July 2016
4. During the 2016 visit, the Orangun of Ila conferred on him the chieftaincy title of OTUNBA SAYEDERO OF ILA-ORANGUN

Bibliography extracted from:

1.        Tunde Ajiboye (2010), Ila Grammar School (1962-64): Reminiscences in Oyeniyi Akande (Ed.), We Started Great: Reminiscences on Ila Grammar School, Ila-Orangun, Nigeria (1960-2010), pp. 70-71
2.        Olayiwola Aderemi Awoniyi (2020), My Sojourn in Ila Grammar School, in Awoniyi, O.(compiler), Peter’s Second Coming: report on the return visit to Nigeria by Chief Peter Routley, July 03-11,2016, pp. 59-60
3.        Olushola Abanikanda(2021), Ila: A Tip of the Iceberg, in Igbo Ileke: the publication of Ila Grammar School Old Students Association 60th Founder’s Day Edition, pp. 42-46
4.        Oyeniyi Akande (2010), Reward for Breaking the Rules, in Akande, O (2010), We Started Great: op.cit.,pp. 76-78
5.        Peter Routley (2015), The Chronicle of a Peripatetic Teacher, pp. 32-34