Lamikanra and Chief Guy Gargiulo at Oke Agbe in Akoko, Ondo State

Gargiulo has now spent fifty-seven busy years in Nigeria which means that he has spent more days in Nigeria that the vast majority of Nigerians and can look back with justifiable pride at what he has been able to achieve in so many different areas of human endeavour. He is therefore a Nigerian, the best kind of Nigerian by virtue of his experience and contribution. He came to teach in one of the leading secondary schools in the country at a time when the standard of education was riding pretty close to the crest of a peak and by all indications was getting set to go even higher. Shortly after hs arrival and having had time to take stock, GG came to the conclusion that Nigeria was set to become the clear leader of Africa in terms of academic accomplishment in the march to meaningful and total emancipation of a continent that had been held down to a subservient position for several centuries.

He saw the mission for Nigeria as the liberator of Africa and waited quite comfortably for Nigeria to fulfil her mission. Unfortunately, the nation, the largest country in Africa with all her resources both human and natural has not been able to even contemplate the fulfilment of her mission and has instead, criminally and deliberately chosen to betray it.. That is the tragedy of Nigeria and Nigerians including those like Gargiulo who have adopted this country and her peoples with a wholeheartedness that could only have been the result of love, true and immeasurably strong. Old age, for those fortunate enough to attain it, is a time for sober reflection, for looking back and trying to make some sense of their numerous experiences. Gargiulo is at that point in his life when he must decide for himself if his Nigerian existence has been worth the tremendous effort which he has expended.

If I were to answer for Gargiulo, I would say without any hint of equivocation that his success is of monumental proportions but if you ask him, he is likely to confess that the abiding feeling that dogs him is one of frustration. The visible and even vibrant secondary school system which he met on his arrival in Nigeria has been eviscerated by repeated failures caused by myopic government intervention, puerile political grandstanding, failure of genuine investment, poor teacher training, growing apathy, lack of real economic growth, growing religiousity, massive youth unemployment leading to the stunting of ambitions among the youths among a plethora of other factors no less potent than those listed above. In the twilight of what would otherwise have been a long and brilliant career, Gargiulo is far from happy at the returns on his huge investment in Nigeria and her youths and he cannot be comforted because of the ponderous weight of what he thought were justifiable expectations from a country teeming with capable, confident and determined people. Somehow, those sterling qualities have not been able to take Nigeria to the promised land or even launch the country towards that massively elusive destination.

Gargiulo has been able to build a secondary school in the rocky terrain of Okeagbe, very far from the madding crowdsand a worthy laboratory for the development of the science of youth development that went far beyond book learning. In these days of rigid compliance with increasingly perplexing government regulation and centrally prescribed orthodoxy, there cannot be another public institution like Ajuwa Grammar School that was hacked out of the bush by Gargiulo and his co-workers in those heady days of the early sixties when GG set out on his odyssey with hopes undimmed by the possibility of failure. The school that GG built has produced hundreds of impressively versatile Nigerians who are working with quiet efficiency in many diverse fields because they were exposed to a broad spectrum of experiences in the days of their impressionable youth.

Ajuwa Grammar School developed the capacity to feed herself by growing a variety of crops using modern labour saving devices and practised animal husbandry using the latest techniques. Even now, you will find tractors on the premises which is flanked on one side by an impressive palm tree plantation laid out by Gargiulo on one side and the dam which caused Gargiulo to lose his top on one famous occasion, on the other. It can be argued that this is a model which should have been adopted by schools all over Nigeria but the wisdom of this method has been lost and is never likely to be regained.

Gargiulo may not be a Nigerian by birth but he is one by unshakeable conviction. This being the case, he deserves to be regarded as a full blooded Nigerian. He has not just invested his time and energy in Nigeria’s development but has also put down his money where his mouth is. Unlike many other Nigerians, most of whom we can put a name to and all of whom are holding leadership positions, Gargiulo has imported his patrimony into Nigeria in an effort for other Nigerians to develop their potential. Hampered by the lack of money to prosecute his development projects in and around Okeagbe, he sold his father’s house in the island of Capri in Italy and repatriated the money to Nigeria where he felt that the money was sorely needed and is content to live in a modest but beautiful house on a hill in his beloved Ajuwa Grammar School, an institution that is a living, if sadly diminished memorial to one who came, saw and fell deeply in love with Nigeria.

Unlike many other Nigerians, most of whom we can put a name to and all of whom are holding leadership positions, Gargiulo has imported his patrimony into Nigeria in an effort for other Nigerians to develop their potential. Hampered by the lack of money to prosecute his development projects in and around Okeagbe, he sold his father’s house in the island of Capri in Italy and repatriated the money to Nigeria where he felt that the money was sorely needed and is content to live in a modest but beautiful house on a hill in his beloved Ajuwa Grammar School, an institution that is a living, if sadly diminished memorial to one who came, saw and fell deeply in love with Nigeria.

Gargiulo’s love for Nigeria may not have been fulfilling but in no way is it unrequited. So completely has he blended with the locality that over the years he has come to be highly respected and loved for who he is and his contribution to the lives of people around him. Over the years, he has immersed himself in the local culture and has developed an appreciation of the Yoruba language, which he speaks fluently, his intonation only slightly coloured by his native Italian intonation. His mastery of Yoruba idioms, proverbs and special usage of the language, are all taken from the top drawer and speaks of the immense effort which has been expended in the study of a language which because of its tonality and numerous nuances is not designed for the faint hearted.

Chieftaincy titles may, in contemporary times, lost some of the gravitas attached to them but the fact that no less than three titles have been conferred on him by three different Obas, each of them in appreciation of GG’s contribution to the communities around him and given his love of the common touch, there is no doubt that none of his titles was lobbied for. He has three traditional titles but wonder of this is that he has not been snowed under by other awards which are well within the purview of institutions in Ondo State up to and including the State government to award for his numerous services to the State. Until such awards are given, he revels in his chieftaincy titles and the people around him are not likely to let him forget his titles because to all of them, he is simply ‘Chief’.

All throughout his long stay in Nigeria, Gargiulo has clung to his British citizenship in the manner of a foetus attached to its umbilical cord but at the same time clung tenaciously to a Nigerianness which can only be shaken free by death and even then, it is likely to live long in the memory of a multitude of people long after his British or even Italian heritage is completely forgotten or perhaps discarded as being irrelevant. Alive or dead, GG is a Nigerian even without the papers to prove it!

-Adebayo Lamikanra recently retired as a Professor of Pharmacy, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile -Ife