When I was going to Rudy Wilson’s house on Monday, I had my flash drive along with me for one purpose: to be able to copy a few pictures of mine which Rudy told me he had kept in his photo album since 2002/3 when we had first met in Nigeria. I didn’t put much hope on it, but I remembered him as one of the African-American professors on that trip to my University in Ibadan who had a camera and was busy clicking away while the programme went on. We had gathered to honour our new University Professor, Francis Egbokhare who was then the youngest professor in the University with poems, prose, jokes and testimonials. We also read out a few love letters of his that a few conspirators had previously colluded with his beautiful wife to make public. It was a jolly get-together back then. I didn’t put much hope on it because I didn’t believe that Rudy indeed had me in any of his shots. And in any case, it was a long time ago. The fact that he didn’t remember me on the first meeting, and I had to remind him of the event, only confirmed to me that I was on an almost wild goose chase.

It was a pleasant surprise therefore to open those thick photo albums and find, after about thirty minutes of browsing, a few pictures of my campus days that brought back great memories. As it turned out, my paper images have indeed preceded my arrival in the United States by a few more years than I could have confidently taken credit for just a few days ago. And to my pleasant surprise, I also found a few more candid shots of others people from Ibadan in that thick album. I promptly removed them, with permission, and scanned them into my flash drive. Let me share them with you here, along with a few other shots that I took today. Those pictured in the old photos would surely remember the thrills of those campus times.

Click on the images to enlarge