Government Secondary School Afikpo Alumni Association (GSSAAA) is the global association of former students of Government Secondary School Afikpo (GSSA), a high school located in Ebonyi State of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It began in 2007 when a small group of committed men, motivated by loyalty to the cradle of their success, gathered in Orlando, Florida, for the inaugural Convention in December 2007. Given the deplorable condition of GSSA in the aftermath of the Nigerian Civil War of the 1960s, the main preoccupation of GSSAAA has been not surprisingly the restoration of GSSA to reestablish its prewar status as one of the best secondary schools in Nigeria and indeed the world. In addition GSSAAA is committed to promoting secondary education in sub-Saharan Africa especially in those places where war and its aftermath have devastated educational institutions and hobbled education.
Our membership of successful alumni, span the continents with presence in Africa, Asia, Europe and North and South America. Our membership continues to grow as more alumni join us towards attaining the important goal of preserving our collective legacy and restoring this invaluable jewel – GSSA. GSSAAA is a charitable organization that qualifies as tax-exempt under section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Service code.
Our Mission
To feed the hungry minds of Sub-Saharan Africa by promoting education at all levels but especially at its most crucial juncture, the secondary level.
“We should take this chance that among those who now sit and will sit in the main classroom block, those who will sleep in the renovated student hostels, those who will titrate solutions, connect cables and dissect the cockroach and toad in the renovated laboratories, those who will project technical drawings; among all who will draw from the fountain of knowledge at GSSA, we may get Nobel laureates, we may get clones of Newton, we may get famous men without taint.”
– Prof Ndu Eke, PM (primus)
GSSAAA is devoted to education in sub-Saharan Africa. Our activities will include the restoration of crumbling school buildings including rehabilitation of crucial infrastructure such as water and power facilities; the erection of new buildings and even new schools; the development and support of teaching staffs; the equipping of schools including stocking of school libraries and laboratories and the provision of scholarships to deserving indigent students. The activities of the organization may also include “Books for Hungry Minds” campaigns involving solicitations for book donations for schools at all levels but especially the secondary school level.
Our activities will focus initially on those areas where education has lost ground and suffered serious setbacks as a result of war and its aftermath. Such areas include especially southeastern Nigeria where educational institutions were devastated by the Nigerian Civil War of the late 1960’s. Sierra Leone, Liberia and Mozambique are other countries ravaged by wars that took a toll on the schools. War is still raging or simmering in the Congo. That situation will therefore be addressed when the embers of war have finally died down there. Southern Sudan deserves special mention. We have a soft spot for this new nation because Dr. John Garang, the head of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and the liberator and founding father of the new nation of Southern Sudan, was a student at GSSA briefly in the 1960’s. Demographic imperatives require that a lion share of resources will go to southeastern Nigeria.
Charity begins at home. So Job one is the restoration of our alma mater, GSSA.
The School
“This labor of love ….this magnificent obsession”
– Dr. Azubuike Ezeife, PM, Member BOT, GSSAAA
GSSA was once the crown jewel of secondary education in our part of the world. It was an international school of great repute. Today this former piece of sparkling diamond has almost been transformed into a piece of charcoal. Same element. A world of difference in value. As alumni of this magnificent citadel of learning, it is our task to reverse this perverse feat of alchemy.
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