By Dr. Yusuf ILYASU Maina
NEWSDAILYNIGERIA: If I could live any five years of my life again, I would choose 1977 to 1982—the years we spent at Government Secondary School, Damboa. It would be an easy choice. Those years hold some of my happiest, most genuine and unforgettable memories.
They were years of discovery: of friendship, affection, innocence and all the mysteries of growing up. We found our friends, roommates and classmates. We shared meals, clothes, laughter, tears and dreams. We lived and learned together, quarrelled, made peace and grew side by side. Those memories are treasures. Time can’t diminish them, and distance can’t erase them.
I suspect that if every member of our Damboa ’82 family could return to those days, many of us would say yes without a second thought. We thought we were simply classmates. Without realising it, we were building a brotherhood that would last long after school and endure through the years.
More than four decades later, that bond is still strong. Our reunions are about more than catching up or recalling old stories. They show, in a very real way, what lasting friendship looks like: standing by one another through joy and grief, success and hardship.
Think of the recent wedding of Barrister Abana’s daughter—our daughter. The care and generosity our members showed, each contributing what they could despite their own challenges, made it clear that the spirit of Damboa ’82 is alive and well. We may no longer sit in the same classroom or around the same dining table, but we still share a family table built on love, compassion and responsibility.
We saw the same spirit when our brother Shuibu Ahmadu was recently hospitalised. His situation brought genuine concern from across the group. Our sister Amina Ahmed Kerma, despite the pressures of these difficult times, stepped forward with heartfelt care for his wellbeing. Her kindness reminded us that brotherhood isn’t measured by what we say. It’s shown in what we’re willing to do for one another.
These gestures might seem small to someone looking in from the outside. To us, they mean a great deal. They remind us that careers, wealth, status and circumstance can pull people apart—but genuine friendship can bring them back together.
Today, we are older. We have families, responsibilities, struggles and private battles of our own. Yet each of us still carries a memory of that young student walking the corridors of Government Secondary School, Damboa, unaware that the friendships taking shape there would become one of life’s greatest blessings.
Damboa ’82 is more than a graduating class. It is a family, a brotherhood and a legacy. Perhaps our greatest achievement isn’t what we’ve accomplished individually, but the love we’ve managed to preserve together.
May we keep standing by one another—celebrating together, grieving together and giving what we can. And when the story of our lives is told, may it be said that we didn’t just attend the same school. We became family for life.
Damboa ’82: classmates by circumstance, family by choice, and bound together by the grace of time.