How I knew I attended a great secondary school

By Obed Aladum

I was born before the civil war, and raised in a rural community where farming was the major occupation. My parents therefore, were farmers and I grew up following them to the farms and learning the rudiments of farming.

I started primary school in my village just because children were expected to go to school, but there was no focus or vision of what was to be achieved during and after the primary school education. After each school day, we went back home to either join our parents on the farm or to carry out some other domestic chores like fetching of water for domestic use, gathering of firewood and cutting of shrub for domestic animals. Schools in my village then were owned by the churches and there were two main schools: the Anglican Church school and the Salvation Army Church school. Each pupil was expected to attend the school associated with the faith of his parents. These two schools in my village were for junior primary pupils only, with Primary 3 being the highest class. After Primary 3, the pupils were expected to be transferred to the headquarters of their church in the town which was situated about four kilometers from the village. This was where they completed classes from Primary 4 – 6. These pupils trekked the distance every day to and fro to obtain complete primary education

I was lucky that I did not trek this distance daily because I had an aunt who was a teacher in a neighbouring village who requested my parents’ permission for me to stay with her in the school, so that she would pay my school fees.  Initially, I did not want to go because of teachers’ flogging and strict discipline, but my mother persuaded me to go with her, that my aunt would help to give me good education. I knew I was going to miss all the village activities I used to indulge in with my friends, like playing football and going to the stream to swim, but I followed her, albeit, reluctantly. Following my aunt to the neighbouring village may have been an act of providence because it opened for me windows of knowing the importance of education, the need for one to read and study hard. I stayed with her until I finished Primary 6 and obtained good grades.

After Primary 6, I would have followed the trend back then in my village which was for young primary school leavers to be sought after by their kinsmen doing business in different towns, especially at Aba, to come serve them and learn their trade and/or business. For people from my community then, the ultimate business was buying and selling of stock fish at the former famous Ekeoha Market at Aba. Again, providence interceded on my behalf as my uncle, who had the village scholarship to attend university, intervened and said that I must go to secondary school. My father could not foot my school fees because he had other children in primary school then; my uncle was willing and ready to train me, even as he was in his final year in the university. He advised that I should wait for one year to enable him finish his university education and then be able to sponsor my secondary education. It was a battle of decision between going to learn business and waiting for one year before going to secondary school. Again, my mother, even though uneducated, persuaded me to wait for one year, but still staying with my aunt in her school. My uncle kept me busy by buying some Class 1 secondary school novels like Eze Goes to School for me, which I used to occupy my time throughout the period.

The following year when it was time for another common entrance examination in the then East Central State, my uncle enrolled me for the examination and chose the schools he would like me to attend, including Owerri High School, which, today is Government Secondary School, Owerri. My aunt helped prepare me for the common entrance examination as an external candidate, since I had finished my primary school a year before the exam. Living in the village without access to newspaper but only radio, which was considered a luxury, by the way, and only switched on when there was money to buy battery to power it, it was difficult to know when the common entrance examination results were out. This was only possible when the result slip was sent to the village post office box or postal agency.

When the common entrance examination result came out, we did not know about it until a relation who was a headmaster in a township school bought the Renaissance Newspaper which was published then by the East Central State government. My name was in the publication among those who passed the examination; I was posted to Owerri High School. My father was not impressed with my posting. He queried why I was not posted to any of the secondary schools around my area so I could attend from the village, or better still, rent an accommodation around the school in order to reduce cost. We were going to post office almost on daily basis to check for the arrival of the admission slip. My uncle, on the other hand, was ecstatic when he heard that I passed the examination and was posted to Owerri High School. He said it was a good school and that I was lucky to have been posted to the school many people were struggling to gain admission into. Luckily for me, my uncle had finished his university education then, and because he was over thirty years old when he graduated, he did not have to go for the compulsory national youth service programme, but proceeded straight to seek employment.

Not minding that he had not settled down in his new job, he advised my father to borrow money from anywhere he could find to ensure that I attended Owerri High School, and that he (my uncle) would pay the money back with interest when he settled down in his new job. That was how I came to Owerri High School, now Government Secondary School Owerri. My father had never been to Owerri before, but hired someone who brought me to Owerri for registration. Coming to Owerri was my first time of visiting any township, as I had hitherto neither any immediate relation living in the town I could visit nor any other reason to visit. Incidentally, the guy who brought me to Owerri on the registration day left me to go back home alone, while he proceeded to Aba. It was then I knew I had grown up, since I could reach home safely on my own, despite the fact that it was not a direct journey. I had to change vehicles three times in addition to the ones I did through trekking. It was the good old days when there were no security issues.

When the school finally resumed, I came back to school alone using public transport with my metal box, grass foam and other materials required of new students. I was posted to B House Extension as my dormitory. It was an old military barrack accommodation with Zinc windows and rough ceiling. Of course, the Class 2 students were hanging around to call Class 1 students all sorts of names. As was the tradition as revealed to us by the senior students, we responded to being called names. I met some Class 1 students who were younger than me, some who were my age mates, and some others who were older than me. Seeing the younger ones encourage me; I figured that if they could survive the rigors of the school activities, then I would survive, too. It did not take time before we adjusted to the new environment, we found ourselves in and started making friends, but it was still difficult for me as communication was done in English; this was because coming from a rural area without any form of exposure, English language was very difficult for me, especially mastering of the tenses.

As time went on, we became familiar with the new environment and started socializing and learning how to speak English fluently with some spattering of grammatical mistakes here and there. We started meeting senior students who had a good command of English language, especially the Upper 6 and Class 5 students and started copying and imitating their spoken English. School became enjoyable; school activities and classroom work began to shape us. Also shaping us was the high standard of discipline and the strict regimen the school ran. Young minds started imbibing the ethics of the new environment by interacting with people from different family backgrounds and levels of exposure. There were the rich kids, and the poor ones. We sat together, ate together, studied together and competed together. As young innocent minds, we knew no evil, saw no evil and developed as we went along.

I discovered I was in a great school when, in 1978, the old boys came to the school for their annual reunion and visited our dormitories. As they lined up as old boys of our school, all of them juggernauts holding big positions in their various organizations, it dawned on us that we could be like them in no distant time. Before long, a library block was built in our school and we were told that it was built by the old boys’ association. This was a novel thing: old students of a school contributing to the running of the school owned by the government, just for the benefit of the students. My friends in the village who attended rural schools were jealous when I told them of our school library; they envied the fact that i was attending one of the best schools in the state and in the country: it had one of the best results in the West African Examination results. The good WAEC result from our school each year gave some of us hope that ours would be like that and each year, we always wanted to know the number of final year students who got admission into universities. These compelled some of us to work hard, hoping that we would make it like others who have passed through the school. Indeed, we saw the future from the prism of the old students who had passed through the school.

It was a big setback when we took the West African Examination Council exams (WAEC) in 1980 and could not get complete results because some of our papers like English, Biology and Physics were cancelled by the council.  The reasons why the school results were canceled were obvious as the state government had forced the school authorities to register external candidates for WAEC; those who could not pass WAEC in their past attempts, but desired to further their education with good results. The first school of choice for most of these external candidates was Government School Owerri, because the school always had good results. Some of them never attended classes and always depended on leaked exam questions. Those of us who passed JAMB with awaiting results were disappointed when we could not get the results to process the admission. It was a sorry setback for those of us in that set. Nevertheless, because we had good academic foundation and were grounded in our chosen subjects, we remedied our poor results and proceeded to higher institutions of learning. That was one of the attributes of boys from great secondary schools like Government Secondary School, Owerri: dogged resilience.

How do you know a great school?

A school where 99% percent of students who sought admission into higher institutions every year obtained the admission despite stiff competition; that is a great school.

A school where none of her products can could be found in any of the motor parks across the country as touts; that is a great school.

A school who nurtured her students in such a way that they were perpetually attached to the school by the creation of an old boys’ association that enabled them give back to their alma mater; that is a great school.

A school that molded and raised her students to be among the best, and taught them to remember where they came from, to remember their heritage and pedigree; that is a great school.

A school where students were taught to know their rights and die for them; a school whose old students are (among) the policy makers of their society; that is a great school.

 A great school is not determined by its buildings, but by the products of the school. OGSS was, and is still, a great school.

I have attended two different higher institutions of learning, but I have no attachment to any of them like I have for Government Secondary School, Owerri. In fact, I have no nostalgic feeling for the universities I attended like I have for the secondary school alma mater. Even after over four decades, I have not forgotten my classmates form OGSS.  

Government Secondary School, Owerri is the mother who nurtured us when we were young and had no hope; she showed us the way we should go by inculcating in us the discipline to face the challenges of the world. Now that we are all grown and mature, how can we forget the mother who nurtured us! This attachment we have to our alma mater gave rise to our belonging to, and being active members of the old boys’ association at any, if not all, of the three levels:

  1.  National 
  2. Branch, and
  3. Class set level.

Gentlemen, let’s join hands to build the school to an acceptable modern-day standard; let us restore the dignity of our alma mater. Government alone cannot do it; it needs the partnership and buy-in of the old boys’ association to be able to engender a restoration of OGSS to the standard it was known for in the past; the standard that will make us proud enough to send our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren there. Rome was not built in a day, and a journey of many miles starts with taking a first step. Let’s start now.

Now is the time to rebuild OGSS!

Obed Aladum, a member of the ’75 set, lives in Port Harcourt. He works in the oil industry.


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