Aiyedatiwa, Bajowa to Grace MMGS’ 71st Anniversary Celebration

Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa of Ondo State is expected to declare open this weekend’s activities marking the 71st anniversary of the renowned Manuwa Memorial Grammar School (MMGS) Iju Odo in Okitipupa Local Government Area of the state, and the re-union festival of the school’s old students’ association (MMGSOSA). The school, established with 11 others in 1954, occupies the 80th position in the hierarchy of the oldest secondary schools in Nigeria.

Also expected at the event is an ex-permanent secretary at different times at Federal Ministries of Defence, Industry and Science and Technology, Major General Olu Bajowa (retd.), a grand-patron of the association and a member of the 1954 first set of 22 students of MMGS which grew to 34 before the end of that year.

Specifically, Governor Aiyedatiwa who hails from the same sub-Ilaje ethnic nation with the late Rev. Samuel Manuwa (believed to be the first Anglican priest in the now entire Ondo South Senatorial District), who the school was named after, is expected to be the special guest of honour at the annivesary lecture titled ‘Giving Back: Sustaining Our Stewardship of Excellence’.

The lecture will hold on Saturday, February 22, the exact date the school took off in 1954.

As part of the socio-welfare content of the activities, the old students have invested massively in a medical outreach programme and a health fair which would hold on the same day with the lecture, and designed to benefit the school’s neighbouring communities as a way of giving back and in line with the theme of the anniversary. 

On the same day, members of the newly elected executive council of MMGSOSA, led by Rev. Mrs Gbemisoka Onasanya would be sworn-in.

The lecture would be preceded on Friday by a set of events which include cultural display by current students of MMGS, inter-house qiuz/debate and cocktail in the evening. The annivesary would be rounded up on Sunday with a special thanksgiving service at St. Paul Anglican Church, Iju Odo, which will be officiated by one of the old students, who is the Bishop of Diocese on The Coast, Rt. Rev. Oluseyi Pirisola. 

Meanwhile congratulations and good wishes have continued to flow for Rev. Onasanya and the new exco, notably from General Bajowa, the traditional ruler of Morubodo Kingdom Oba Ernest Idepefo, the Principal of MMGS, Mr. Taye Akinkoye, members of Ilutitun Youth Development Forum, Ambassador Foluso Olukoya, the immediate past Ondo State Commissioner for Agriculture, Pastor Segun Ayerin, among others