By DR. James Ibeto Umunna
Prologue :
I am happy I am available to write into this new magazine named the “Renaissance”. Renaissance means ‘rebirth’,” reawakening “. This suggests that something existed before but not anymore or seems no longer there , and one wants to bring it back to life. This creates the vision of newness, innovation and advancement.“What used to be” is history. You hear people talk of rewriting history, or changing history. This is impossible. “What’s done cannot be undone”. You can create something like it, to stand for it:–you can advance it , make something better,more vibrant and more acceptable, but the act has already been committed and has gone down in the records. It stands in its own right. It is in this light that I see the word Renaissance. You want to create something new to stand in place of what used to be, but is no more. It is also in this context that I situate my write up. “The things we used to do”, talking about some little things that used to be, but are no more, or,at best, not in the same form.
Rightly, you cannot talk of old things without talking of old people, the dramatis personae of events you want to create the like of. A young man who talks of old times before his times can only recount what he has learnt or he would just be imagining. But the old folks who were involved are the only ones who can tell you what they did. Of course, it is assumed they will recount with all honesty. Any such reminiscences that are not honest cannot stand for history.
What I am writing about is not set out in any particular order. The facts just drop in and I write.Space may not permit me to write all I would have wanted to, but there are some ordinary things that strike me.
I entered Government Secondary School Owerri on 15th January 1951. I was assigned to House C which in later years was renamed Owerri House. In a previous article in a magazine of the Old Boys, I had narrated the different means of transport that brought the students. Some came in cars, some on foot and others on bicycles.I came on bicycle ,sitting on the handle bar through a distance of over 27 miles , the equivalent of over 43
kilometres. I was trying to endure the agony of the pressure of the iron bar under my thighs , thinking I was having a raw deal , but the greater was yet to come. While descending a steep hill, the cyclist lost control of the bicycle and we landed in a ditch. I sustained some bruises . The traditionalist would infer that the journey and what I was going for would be marked by bruises and bad luck , but that was the beginning of what would be the best things that happened in my life.—the sojourn at Government Secondary School,Owerri. Travelling from home to School on bicycle and back home was one of the things I used to do , and I did this three terms a year for five good years.
Our class was single streamed, like those before us. Everybody knew everybody else by name. it was surname first, followed by abbreviation of the first name. eg. Nna S, Madu B. Sometimes by this naming method, one never really got to know the full names, and in later life, when you heard or read names, you were not sure whether it was the person you knew before as a contemporary. Equally, the principal as well as the teachers knew all the students.Talking of names, one of our teachers never really bothered about your name.He would call you any name he could remember and defend himself by saying “Names don’t matter.”
Accommodation:
Virtually all students were boarders, and this made for close association between students, and they related more or less like brothers. So many solid lasting relationships came to be.These relationships blossomed even after leaving school.
There were three dormitories called Houses to which students were assigned– A, B, and C .I was assigned to House C,later renamed Owerri House .The student population of the whole school was less than 200, so space was not a problem. The problem was availability of beds to sleep on.There were beds called Bunks. The bunk consisted of two wooden planks set side by side on two blocks of wood ,one block of wood at each end. On this you placed your beddings. These were assigned according to seniority, because there was not enough. There were also the local village bamboo beds named “Alawa Aghara “as substitutes. These were eventually phased out. My friend Felix did not have a bed when he joined us late and two of us had to sleep on mine until he got one.
When you talk of beds you remember bed bugs . They infested both bunks and “alawas”,and were very difficult to get rid of. Their stubbornness may have been why fresh students were often referred to as “bed bugs”.
Fagging
Dormitory cohabitation was associated with fagging.
It was a common, and unedited practice, for senior students of Class 4 or 5 level to choose new entrants as protégées. The Juniors called them masters, while they themselves settled with“ fags”. The fag served his Master, not as a servant but as a friend .He ran small errands for the Master, and the Master protected him from some oppressive senior boys. This was a type of symbiosis , each side gaining. Sometimes some grains of GN2 passed from Master to fag. They called them fags because they assisted them in doing routine chores. I was a fag to Dennis . These are some of the things we did.
Dress Code
Perhaps, one of the most outstanding things for me among the ordinary things was the dress code, because it affected me favourably. The School provided us with school uniforms for classes and for domestic use. We code-named these uniformed dresses “Govmenti”.(Govmentus for singular). School dress was white shirt and blue shorts. No mufti was allowed and it was an offence to wear one. Church dress was white shirts and white shorts. Shoes were sandals only. There were some students who could not offord to own muftis and you could not differentiate between those who had and those who had not.The Scool also provided washermen to ensure clean dressing.
Manners
There was utmost respect for seniors. Class two boys took advantage of this to oppress class one boys especially, and often reported these to prefects at the slightest deviation. Questions or name calls were answered with “Yes please” or “no please”, “Sir” was reserved for the principal and school masters.
Walking across the field was a punishable offence. Lateness at all times was punishable.
Morning Assemblies
The school day started with devotion in the school assembly hall.
Exhortation was conducted by the Principal while the school Captain or other prefects read the Bible passage. Catholics and Protestants worshiped together during such morning devotions. It was at this assembly that Mr. English usually said his famous prayers, about which I had written before and which have guided me all along. For those who have not read these prayers, I hereby recount two of them:
1) O lord, teach us never to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to.
2) O Lord, teach us never to run away from our duties because we are afraid we may fail.
Saturday Morning Inspection
This was routine. The House Prefects made sure the dormitories were cleaned properly. The principal and the house masters would go from house to house, every Saturday morning , with every student standing by his well made-bed. Finally there was a general assembling in the school field, where the Principal, House Masters, and Captains further inspected the students in their school uniform, and were addressed by the Principal.
On this occasion, the names of students on detention were read out and their punishment announced.Such punishment included school runs or if grave , caning by the Principal. Only the principal had the authority of canning. There were some recalcitrant students who either earned hours of detention or caning every week.
Saturday Night Entertainment
This was an event to look up to. It was an occasion for the boarders to gather (usually in the dining hall) for relaxation.There were exhibits of drama, singing music, traditional dances,recitations and jokes. There was no alternative. There was nothing like television then. The first television service in Nigeria was the Western Nigeria Television Service, said to be the first in West Africa, or even Africa and this came on much later , when I was already in my clinical years in the university.
I don’t even recollect if there was any radio service. If there was, there was none in the school. So Saturday nights were great occasions where there was any form of entertainment for the students.
Panga
Many ,may not know what is panga. Panga is palm fruit. it was food for the hungry, not so rich student who could not buy banana or groundnut. The school had a large palm plantation situated on both sides of the road into the school premises from the Okigwe road end where we had the lavatory. The trees were young then and the fruit could be plucked without much climbing. I was a frequent visitor to them. (Both Osukwu and okpuruka were welcome).
GN2
Groundnut fried or raw. Students enjoyed the raw nuts which they could obtain from the student in-charge of the food store usually early night time. You had to strike a good relationship with the store boy to enjoy such a favour. It was illegal of course but more serious offences had been commited in any case. It was categorized as stealing. Call it a palliative . At break times between classes , those who had the money bought GN2
Crushen Salt
This is the decoy name for garri. A decoy name is one used to divert attention from the real name to hide from prying eyes and ears. GN2 falls into this category.
It was also available by the special grace of the food store boy.It was soaked in cold water and “smoked”,taken with groundnuts.
Official Language
The officially permissible language of interaction was English. Speaking any vernacular language was a punishable offence.This was excusable at that time because students came from virtually all parts of the then Eastern Nigeria, owning different languages. There were also students from even the Western Region . No one vernacular language could have been suitable. Besides , speaking English in this way helped to master it for acadedmic purposes.
Because of space and time I shall call attention to a few more things briefly.
Nworie River
We fetched our water from Nworie river on the way to Control Post, first thing in the morning and in the evening. We walked the distance , carrying our buckets on the head. By we, I mean junior boys.
Lighting the lantern at night
There was nothing like a generating plant . For night Preps classrooms were provided with standing kerosene lamps
Day off …On the First Saturday of each month students were free to go out from the school premises. At other times an exeat was needed from the House Master.
Plate washing
All plates used for food were collected in bulk and washed by the juniors in rotating groups as a duty or as punishment. Sometimes one person could be punished to wash all the plates alone.
Kondo buying
This is eye service performed by some students in subterfuge order to please the school authorities or a senior.
Gbenching
This is another decoy name for pilfering. It tended to make light what was an act of stealing , even though it pertains to little things.
Boxing, cricket, football, athletics were in vogue.
The library and the competition. One wanted to know who had read more novels than others in the class. Shakespaere, Dickens , Oliver
Goldsmith, Wilde and others. In this context of reading from the library, I want to end this write up by narrating my personal experience. I loved English Language and Literature. From the library I picked up an essay book in which there was an excercise to write an essay on Water. I wrote thus .“Water,water”,cried a weary desert traveler. If I can but find a drop to cool my tongue, I am a man again” . and I completed the essay,and some of my classmates read it.This was in in the pre- WAEC period. Then came the examination. One of the essay topics was “Write an essay on the importance of water in the life of man”
You can guess the rest. Some of my classmates spread the story. Thereafter some doctor colleagues would greet me with “Water, Water”
If God gives me the grace, I will write more: Acting plays : Macbeth.
Water,Water,Water. My first article in the School Magazine. Cochroaching and the attendant punishment.
Language.
DR. James Ibeto Umunna (1951 SET)
