Numerous are the streams that lead to social prosperity; but all of them spring from the same source and that is public education. – Gaspar Jovellanos, 1744-1811.
The British established five Government Colleges – Kings College, KC, Lagos; Government College, Ibadan, GCI; Government College, Umuahia, GCU, and Government College, Ughelli, GCU – to complement the efforts of faith-based secondary schools. This narrative is about Government College, Ughelli, GCU, founded in 1945 and which will be 80 years old in 2025. Christian Churches, Anglicans, Catholics, Baptist and Methodists – had established primary and secondary schools primarily to train people who would serve the churches in propagating the tenets of their faith; secondarily to provide low level public servants and lastly to provide low and middle level manpower for private firms like the Royal Niger Company, now UAC of Nigeria, John Holt etc.
The original intention of colonial education was not to train Nigerians to become Prime Ministers, Presidents or Governors; because one of their leading writers in the nineteenth century had proclaimed the British Empire as one “whose sun will never set.” As is often the case, man proposes, God disposes. By 1964, former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, 1894-1986, was already pronouncing that “the wind of change is blowing over Africa”; as one former colony after another gained independence from colonial rule and the sun set over the Empire, like the Roman and other empires before it. The colonialists, in that respect, were the architects of their own downfall. The schools they established produced those who would later lead the agitation for self-rule and total independence – not only in English speaking Africa; but, in the entire continent.
The first set of African rulers were drawn from among the best educated at the time; educated by the colonialists in the best tradition of institutions of learning globally. Thus, a successful graduate from any secondary school in Africa could go to the United Kingdom and get enrolled in a university without missing a step. We can blame the colonialists for anything else; we must, if truth be told, exonerate them from blame for the deterioration of educational standards in Africa generally and Nigeria in particular. One of Nigeria’s greatest colleges the British founded, GCU, will serve to illustrate how we derailed with regard to excellence in secondary school education; but also how we can retrace our steps.
For the record, I did not attend GCU; Igbobi College, Yaba, trained me. But I grew up around KC and was at GCI several times when at Ibadan. I visited GCU twice in 1959 and 1961, when one of my Uncles, a food contractor to GCU took me during the holidays to Sapele; and from there to GCU to deliver foodstuff. To be candid, there were times when I felt like joining the Mariners in order to KEEP ON SAILING. It was the most pleasant campus I ever saw.
I have stopped by on at least 24 occasions between 1974 and 2020, while on official duty; and I was once a Guest Lecturer on the invitation of the GCUOBA – Warri Branch — during the hot debate about the VISION 2020. I was the only economist to announce that what charlatans called vision was a mere dream. Nigeria was not ready to become a top 20 economy. Events have proved me right.
It will be 40 years in 2025 when my uncle died and 80 years of GCU. What has become of the legacy left for us?
GCU IS RISING AGAIN
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“Give an African a good thing; and he will spoil it.” Anonymous
The legacy issue reminded me of a private experience in 1960. A literature book recommended for us in Form Three was about an English adventurer in South Africa. The statement quoted above was in the book. In the year of Nigeria’s independence, that was abominable to me. I tore out the entire page; which was a cardinal breach of school rules if discovered. My mother would definitely not have condoned it. But, I was being patriotic in my own view. Instead, unsolicited, I wrote an essay, gave to one of our Senior Tutors, Mr John Sagay, to mark. I projected how, with leaders like Ahmadu Bello, Azikiwe and Awolowo, Nigeria would soon overtake Britain as an economic power. With our endowments in natural resources and manpower, greatness could never elude us. I was totally wrong on every count. The nation bequeathed to us in 1960 was far better than what we have now. If truth must be told, the British left us “a good thing” and Nigerians have spoilt it. It started with education. GCU illustrates it.
GCU’s excellence was based strictly on meritocracy. Admission was based on merit not connections. We have the list of ALL the Old Boys from 1945 to 2005; which is being carefully studied. What was most remarkable about the years before 1960 was the number of national and international life achievers the school produced. Soon, we will isolate a dozen. Their contributions to Nigeria and humanity are simply enormous. The question is how was GCU able to achieve so much?
ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE
“An [organisation] is the lengthened shadow of one man”.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882.
Below is the Organisation Structure of the leadership of the GCU. In the beginning, it was not just a series of boxes with titles written in; it represented people with shared vision of excellence and who embarked on the mission annually, monthly, weekly, daily, hourly and every minute. As will be shown presently, once launched in 1945, GCU was an organisation which never slept. Its responsibilities to its students were discharged round the clock.
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