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The Lagos Country Club (LCC), last Friday, celebrated 77 years of its existence with a legacy project tagged, ‘Project Falcon.’ It was an evening of glamour and glitz as it attracted the crème-de-la-crème of the society, comprising captains of industries, business leaders, traditional rulers, religious leaders, politicians, and eminent personalities, among others.
In his welcome speech, the President of the Club, Seyi Adewunmi, stressed that the number, 77, does not just count but testifies how it has existed. “It also bears witness to how well it has been loved, how faithfully it has been tended, and how stubbornly its members have refused to let it fail. At 77, we do not merely turn a page. We stand beneath a tree that our fathers planted in 1949. A tree that stands 77 years does not stand on its trunk alone. It stands on roots that no one sees, buried in soil that asked for patience long before it gave any shade,” he said.
He commended the Club’s founding fathers’ foresightedness and courage to plant a tree that had become an institution, outliving them.
He also commended the past presidents for their leadership, saying, “I speak of our past presidents, each of whom took the baton in a different season, under different skies, and still managed to hand it forward heavier with achievements than they received it.”
He also acknowledged the positive impacts of elders in the club, particularly the chairman of the Board of Trustees, Aare Kolawole Oyefeso.
“I speak of our elders, whose presence among us remains both benediction and correction, because a club that still listens to its elders is a club that will not lose its way. I must also speak in a manner reserved for only the rarest of tributes, of our Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Aare Kolawole Oyefeso,”
He described Oyefeso as the loudest volume of the Club’s library, saying, “Aare, where policy is silent, your wisdom speaks. You have been an all-round resource person that is patient with the young, exacting with the careless and generous with everyone who has ever come to you in genuine need of counsel. Tonight, on behalf of a grateful Lagos Country Club membership, I honour you not with applause alone, but with the promise that what you have poured into us, will not be poured out in vain.”
Adewunmi promised all the Club’s trustees, past officers, and elder statesmen that the tree planted in 1949 still stands because their roots have not let go. He urged the younger members of the Club not to see themselves as guests to the club but heirs, and should take their seats at the table, not as spectators but as builders. He said: “To the younger members of this Club, every son and daughter who has ever wondered whether this club truly has room for them, you are not guests here. You are heirs. The inheritance our fathers left is not a museum to be visited on anniversaries and quietly locked up again until the next one. It is a fire, and fire that is not tended goes cold eventually.
“I charge you, therefore, to rise and take your seats at the table not as spectators but as builders. Bring your energy, ideas, and restlessness, and let them meet the wisdom of those who came before you.”
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The highlight of the 77th anniversary was the commissioning of ‘Project Falcon.’ On the name of the project, he said: “It is fitting that we call it Falcon because Falcon is a creature that does not simply rest on the branch it was hatched, but rises, circles wide, and returns with a view no one on the ground could have imagined.
“That is precisely what this project has done for our imagination of what LCC can become. Tonight, we do not merely commission steel and stone and finish interiors. We commissioned a campaign promise, the eagle promise that this Club will not simply survive the century ahead, but will meet it in style. Project Falcon is our pride because it is beautiful. It is our investment because it is built to outlast every person in this room. And it is, without apology, the gift this administration and this generation of members give to every generation that has not yet been born.”
He, however, said the Club did not bring the project to fruition with some challenges, but stressed that the storms are how real foundation is known.
“To everyone who supported Project Falcon with resources when resources were needed, prayer when prayer was all that was left to give, and who supported it simply by refusing to stop believing when the timeline grew long, I bow to you. We prayed this project into being, and Almighty God, in His faithfulness, has brought us to its unveiling. We thank Him and pray that it may profit generations who will never know our names.
“Every falcon needs a hand skilled enough to release it into flight, and Project Falcon has had many of such hands. Our Tender and Project Monitoring Committee, chaired by my brother and a past treasurer, Bola Akapo (FCA), whose long unglamorous hours of scrutiny protected this project from the errors that sank lesser ambitions, thank you for the vigilance no one applauds. To our consultants and technical partners, you took a vision as a brief from me, turned it into pages of drawing and eventually gave it a pulse. Every wall that will still be standing when our grandchildren are members will bear your craft and I am profoundly grateful,” he stated.
He thanked the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, for his steadfast support and visionary stewardship of the state. He equally expressed gratitude to the Royal Father of the Day and Ooni of Ife, the Father of the Day, Sir Kessington Adebukunola Adebutu, whose generosity, he said, had transcended beyond financial to a philosophy of life that has touched the Club at some of its most defining moments, as well as the Chairman of today, Wole Ogunsanya.
He finally submitted that Project Falcon was proof, cast in glass and steel, that when the members unite behind a shared conviction, there is very little they cannot achieve.
To Club members, he said: “Thank you for your trust when trust was tested, your patience when patience was required and your unwavering loyalty to a Club that has, in turn, tried its best to be worthy of you.
“As we mark 77 years of excellence, let us renew, together, our covenant to guard what makes Lagos Country Club sacred, even as we welcome every new thing that will keep her vibrant for a century still unwritten.”
