Creech’s Mfantsipim Diaries: The season of results and the legends it created

Creech’s Mfantsipim Diaries: The season of results and the legends it created

Opinion 10 minutes read

Creech’s Mfantsipim Diaries: The Season of Results and the Legends It Created

#150 #Anniversary #MOBA #Mfantsipim

There are moments from Mfantsipim School that cling to a boy long after he has left the Hill—moments that return uninvited, like the Cape Coast breeze sweeping through the dormitories at dawn.

For those of us who passed through Kwabotwe in the late 1980s and early 1990s, nothing stirred the school’s soul quite like the announcement of O’level and A’level results.

In those days, WAEC results did not arrive quietly.

The moment the brown envelope touched the headmaster’s desk, the school siren wailed across the compound—long, sharp, unmistakable.


Breakfast froze mid-chew. Gari soakings were abandoned. Shirts were adjusted with calculated calm. Then, like a single organism, the entire school marched toward the Assembly Hall.

The Hill was about to learn who had conquered the Os and As—and who had been “Addo John Suled.”
“Addo John Sule…”

For years, nearly every WAEC question booklet had used the name Addo John Sule as the sample candidate for shading index numbers.

Over time, the name became school folklore. Any visibly struggling candidate instantly became “Addo John Sule.”

The Blue Shirt Dream

As Form 1 to 5 boys, we wore pink shirts and khaki shorts—humble, hopeful, and permanently hungry for elevation. The blue shirt was our promised land. It was more than a uniform. It was survival, seniority, swagger.

The moment a boy crossed from pink into those fresh blue shirts over khaki shorts or black trousers, his entire posture changed. Suddenly, life no longer revolved entirely around prep, punishment, and survival. The new blue-shirt boys moved through campus drenched in scented perfumes, confidence, and dangerous levels of self-importance.

Saturday became performance art.

Some trooped to girls’ schools with exaggerated composure, convinced every female student within sight was secretly observing them with admiration.

“Tetteh Ayitevie! Gyan Dom! Bro, look for me small!”

Others positioned themselves strategically around campus, suddenly becoming unusually respectful to masters and aggressively useful during school events.


Because another hunger had emerged:
Prefectship.
Tsale! Mfantsipim prefects dey rush.

The prefect badge alone could transform an ordinary boy into a small government official. Then came the prefects’ table at the dining hall—a sacred island of order in the middle of organised feeding chaos.

But the true crown jewel was the prefect rooms.
Privacy.
Space.
Peace.

Compared to the brutal cot system, where boys slept packed together under permanent noise, confusion, and surveillance, prefect rooms felt like diplomatic residences.

Every ambitious boy wanted access.

For many lower sixth formers, the blue shirt was not merely a uniform transition.
It was the first taste of power.

On Saturdays, we traded pink for white shirts over khaki trousers, while the revered Sixth Formers glided about in white shirts over black trousers. Sundays carried even greater drama: white over white for forms 1–5, white over black for the Sixth Formers.

Then came the first and last Sunday of every month—traditional cloth day.

Back then, Mfantsipim had no prescribed school cloth, so students arrived at service wrapped in every imaginable fabric and family pride. But the real spectacle was the “somebody”—that sacred cloth some seniors treated like royal regalia.

My brother Biggie Boat, for instance, would sprinkle water on his somebody, fold it carefully, lock it inside his chop box, and preserve it untouched for the entire term. Only on the final Sunday would he unveil it for service.
The stench that emerged could have forced a Methodist bishop into early retirement.

The Grind Behind the Glory
People remember the celebrations. What many forget is the suffering that came before the grades.
Passing the GCE O’levels and A’levels in those days was war.

There were no smartphones. No YouTube tutorials. No AI explanations. If you failed to understand a topic in class, you hunted for help like a man searching for water in Harmattan.
Vacation classes became lifelines.

Some of us attended Sir Law’s famous Physics classes at Orion Cinema before he later moved them to Accra New Town. Students travelled from different corners of Accra just to sit under that man and wrestle Mechanics, Electricity, Light, and Heat into submission.

After class, we converged at K Dom’s residence at Adabraka for waakye. Those gatherings became therapy sessions disguised as lunch breaks. Formulas were debated fiercely. Ignorance was mocked mercilessly. Girls nobody had the courage to approach became subjects of expert analysis.

Others attended vacation classes at Presbyterian Boys’ Secondary School or Wesley Grammar School. Those with wealthier parents enjoyed private lessons at home with hired tutors drilling equations and essays deep into the evening.
Everybody was chasing survival.
And the books…
JSP 1 & 2. Modern Bo. Stoneco. Abbot. Lambert. Nelkon and Parker.

For Literature, we wrestled with The Marriage of Anansewa, Anowa, Weep Not, Child, Wuthering Heights, and Animal Farm. Some could recite entire passages like Methodist catechists preparing for confirmation.
And of course, there was “compe”—the sacred specialty of those with the stamina to study deep into the night.
The pressure was relentless.

Fivers and upper-six formers studied with exhausted eyes while sleep became an enemy and failure hovered permanently over the dormitories.
When the stress became unbearable, strange forms of therapy emerged.

Some nights, after hours of studying, stones suddenly began raining onto Shakar’s roof.
One stone.
Then another.
Then a barrage.

The entire dormitory dissolved into suppressed laughter while Shakar shouted threats into the darkness like an angry village chief confronting invisible spirits.
That was boarding-school therapy.

And perhaps that is why results day carried so much emotional weight.
Because behind every Division One stood sleepless nights, sacrificed holidays, exhausted parents, overcrowded vacation classes, borrowed textbooks, and private battles against fear.

Which is why nothing was more heartbreaking than enduring all that struggle only to end up with “9 in chains.”
That phrase alone could reduce a strong boy to silence.
The Trooping of Boys
Long after the siren summoned those of us on campus for the announcement of O’level results, another ritual began.
Students trooped back to school to check their grades and, if fortune smiled, collect admission letters into Sixth Form. They rarely came alone. Groups of three, five, sometimes entire neighbourhood delegations marched confidently through the main gate like victorious warriors returning from battle.

And the moment they reached the domestic site, the fans began.
Loud. Merciless. Unforgettable.

Ironically, the loudest cheers were reserved for those who had obviously bombed the Os. The worse the performance, the more dramatic the celebration. It was as if the fans existed to cushion humiliation with chaos.
Mfantsipim humour was a special kind of medicine.

Some entered campus with swagger and exited through the senior field in complete silence.
Because before private disappointment came public judgement.
The Clearance Ritual

Before hearing his results, every student first endured the sacred—and sometimes humiliating—ritual of clearance.
Johnsonman’s office was the gate of judgement.
If school fees were owed, they had to be paid. If school property had been misplaced, it had to be replaced.

Only then would Johnsonman finally reach for the brown envelope and read your fate.
For some, the clearance process alone was enough to break the spirit before the grades even arrived.
The office itself was tiny, tucked inside the administration block just to the right when facing the staff common room. Small though it was, that cramped room possessed the power to make or unmake an entire holiday.
Students queued nervously behind the office window, pretending to look relaxed while sweating like sinners in church.
Inside, destinies shifted.
Outside, eavesdropping flourished shamelessly.

Many who entered through the main gate never returned by the same route. After disastrous results, they quietly escaped through the back toward the senior field, choosing the long walk home over the ridicule waiting at the domestic site.
Because Mfantsipim boys could turn another boy’s academic tragedy into full theatrical production—especially if he was considered a wicked or bad boy.
Ironically, almost all the wicked boys were also bad boys.
The Assembly of Judgement

But the real spectacle came later.
That was when private outcomes became public theatre.

The Assembly Hall on results day carried the tension of a courtroom and the electricity of a football final. Every student sat rigidly, heart pounding, waiting for the verdict that would redefine the reputation of immediate past fivers or upper-six formers for the rest of the term.
At the podium stood Corro.

Ruler in hand. Spectacles balanced carefully. Face solemn with administrative authority.
He looked like a man preparing to separate the sheep from the goats.
One by one, names were called.
Each announcement landed differently.
Admiration. Relief. Mockery. Sympathy.
Sometimes all four at once.
The O’level hierarchy itself was sacred:
* Division One with Distinction
* Division One
* Division Two
* Division Three
* GCE

And of course, those who narrowly missed distinction always insisted they had passed with a “strong One.”
Shakar would dismiss the claim immediately.
“There is nothing like strong One,” he would say. “All One is One.”
The Day Scarface Shook the Hill
Then came the unforgettable year MOBA ’90’s results were announced.
That morning, one name shook the entire school.
Eguakun E.

To the administration, he was a notorious bad boy—the nocturnal wanderer, the frepper of classes, the permanent resident of the Housemaster’s black book.
Corro announced the names alphabetically.
One after another:
“Division One.”
“Division Two.”
“Division Three.”
“GCE.”
Popular students received loud fans—sometimes celebratory, sometimes savage.
Then Corro reached the Es.
“Eguakun E.”
He stopped.
The ruler froze mid-air.

Slowly, he lifted his eyes above the spectacles and stared toward the masters seated behind him on the stage. His face carried the expression of a man personally betrayed by the educational system.
The Assembly Hall fell silent.
Corro looked down again.
Adjusted his glasses.
Re-aligned the ruler.
Cleared his throat once more.
Then, in the voice of a man struggling against reality itself, he announced:
“Eguakun E… Division One with Distinction.”
The Assembly Hall exploded.
“Scarface! Scarface! Scarface! Scarface!”
The chant thundered through the hall. Chairs rattled. Walls trembled.
Scarface had achieved the impossible.
The bad boy had outsmarted the system—and the system was completely unprepared for it.
Even some masters looked shaken.
When the noise finally subsided, Corro delivered the line that permanently sealed the moment in Mfantsipim folklore:
“Some of you bad boys may not be lucky like Eguakun.”
But everyone in that hall knew it was not luck.
Scarface had become a legend—not for mischief, but for mastery.

As Mfantsipim School marks 150 years of existence, these stories must become more than nostalgia. They must become reminders.
The Hill was never built merely to produce boys who passed examinations. It was built to produce men of courage, discipline, wit, resilience, and character.

The rituals, fears, laughter, punishments, friendships, and triumphs of those years shaped generations long before mission statements and anniversary slogans became fashionable.

Today’s Kwabotwe boys walk the same paths, hear the same echoes, and inherit the same name we once carried with trembling pride.
But every generation must decide what to do with that inheritance.
The past must guide the present, and the present must protect the future.

For if the stories survive but the values disappear, then the buildings on the Hill become only concrete and memory.
Because Mfantsipim was never just a school.
It was—and remains—a forge.

The writer is Philip Creech-Jones of MOBA 1992 (Mfantsipim Old Boys Association).