A New Foundation for GSSA

Bequeating a heritage of homage and honor and a legacy of love and loyalty.

President Uche, Mr. Principal, Chairman Nkama, Dr. Efimba, please, Dr. Adibe, please, Dr. Mba please, wives and children of GSSA, ladies and gentlemen:

Fear God …

First of all let me thank the organizers of this convention for a terrific and incomparable job. Thank you, Chairman Nkama E. Thank you, members of the GSSAAA Convention Planning Committee. You are the best.

It is fitting that from time to time we pause and ask ourselves: “What is it we are doing? What is this all about? What does it all mean?”

Nearly three score years ago – just after the mid point of the last century – our forebears founded a new secondary school called GSSA. For a period of about one generation or one score years and one decade, something wonderful and excellent was going on at GSSA. What was that something? That something was that kids were being raised in this place in a manner that optimized the chances that they would – as adults – fulfill their God-given potential. You need only look around this hall to see some of the adults those kids became. Here in this hall – in this audience – are graduates of Yale, Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, Howard, University of Edinburgh, University of Pennsylvania, University of Swansea, University of Nigeria, University of Ibadan, Ahmadu Bello University and numerous other great institutions. Well over half of this audience bagged a doctoral degree. We have here a Vice Chancellor of a major Nigerian University and a dean emeritus of one of our Nigerian medical schools. All these people represent a small sample and cross section of the adults those kids became.

Any rational person has a right to think – and expect – that a sane society and sane people would treasure this school and preserve what was going on there.

Was that what happened? Alas No!

After a period of about one generation or 30 years, things fell apart. A new set of perverse priorities took hold in our country. A new mindset gained ascendancy. In some respects, this mindset was akin to and foreshadowed “boko haram” even if it was not quite as ideological or extreme. Neglect of education became the order of the day. Dilapidation and decay were allowed to set in and usher in the dark age that devastated GSSA and the entire educational enterprise in our country. What the fires of war could not do, peace time criminal neglect and indifference and vandalism did. The second period of one generation which is now about to end has therefore been one of inexorable decline and decay that culminated in a crisis of imminent demise of GSSA.

Yes GSSA was indeed about to die. When this came to your attention, you were truly shocked, horrified and alarmed. And what did you do about it? You did not just watch and wring your hands and lament and rue the fate of this magnificent academy, GSSA.

You understood that it was abomination for a treasure like GSSA to be allowed to die no matter the circumstances and no matter the cause of death. Not only that. You also understood that, if anyone who could do something about it, chose instead to stand idly by and make excuses and watch GSSA die, that person would be complicit in the demise of GSSA.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, you are not wood; you are not stones; but men. And being men, when you saw GSSA defiled, desecrated and devastated, it inflamed you. It made you mad.

So what did you do? You stepped in, planted your feet firmly on the ground, and yelled: “NO! ENOUGH! UNACCEPTABLE! INTOLERABLE! No to decline. No to destruction. No to decay. No to demise”.

You said that this place was much too precious to be allowed to perish and become extinct.

Ladies and gentlemen of GSSA, I think that by speaking out loudly and clearly, you have shown the kind of people you are. By what you have done and continue to do, you have served notice to the world that the kids raised by Charles Low and Mboto and Akabogu and Tagbo and Otisi (all principals during the first generation) have grown up and are now showing what stuff they are made of. They have become not just any adults but a different breed of adults. They have become the kind of people who do the right thing no matter what others choose to do. They have become the kind of people who see value not just in things that glitter like gold and silver but in other things whose worth cannot be measured in terms of just gold and silver – other things whose value is priceless. You realize that there are things that are worth more than their weight in gold. GSSA in particular and education in general constitute such priceless treasures. And since all else has failed, you have shown that you are willing to invest your personal treasure to ensure that GSSA lives. Yes I said “invest” even though the dividends will not accrue to you personally. But it is undeniable that you are the kind of people who see anything that benefits our people in general as benefitting you personally. That is enlightened self interest. That is the essence of the kind of education you were given and the kind of people you are.

Yes indeed. You are no ordinary people.

You are the kind of people who realize, as Dr. Jude Nnaemeka Okoyeh of Mboto House (1974 – 1979) and now of Greensboro, NC, reminded us earlier this week, that:

“True wealth is not denominated in gold. Its currency is not expressed in any green paperback. It’s about the lives you touch with your endowment. It’s about the heights you scale. And the hope you bring to those who look up to you.”

You are the kind of men and women who realize that, no matter the circumstances, the education of children remains sacrosanct. It demands urgent action and must not be hostage to the folly and the depraved and warped priorities of corrupt and bad leadership. It must not wait until inept leaders get their act together and corrupt ones clean up their act – a process that may take years if not decades or even generations to accomplish. It must be done with what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called “the fierce urgency of now!.” That is what drives you – today – to act on your own.

Today, thanks to your exertions, GSSA is being rebuilt on a new foundation. It is a different kind of foundation. It is a foundation based on something stronger than concrete, harder than granite and more durable than steel. It is something that will neither degenerate with age nor be tarnished or degraded by the elements. That something is love. Love of the alma mater by the children of the alma mater – the brotherhood of GSSA alumni. You are rebuilding your school – giving your  time, toil, talent and treasure to this particular place – not because you want something from your alma mater for she has already given you all she can give you. You are rebuilding your school simply because you love this place. You have first hand knowledge of its worth and are grateful to this particular place because it gave you a leg up in life and a wonderful head start. And you want your alma mater to do for current and future generations of African kids what she did for you and what you know she is still capable of doing – give kids a chance to fulfill their God-given potential and make it possible for them to become doctors, engineers, architects, geologists, scientists, clergymen, lawyers, judges, computer scientists, teachers, educators, academics, entrepreneurs, professionals of all types, men of learning, authors, in short well educated men who will provide good and visionary leadership in all spheres of life..

GSSA will never be the same again. This is because something extraordinary has happened, and is happening, to her. Because of what you have done and are continuing to do, you are transforming her in fundamental ways. You are engaged in what our own Dr. Ezeife has called “a labor of love” and a “magnificent obsession” directed at making GSSA whole again. Because of this, GSSA will be a better school than ever before. That is beyond question. Why? This is so because when accomplished people like you get together to do something, the result is a marvel and a masterpiece – a model to be copied. But GSSA will be more than that.

More than that, GSSA will be a special school. Your “labor of love” is investing her with an aura that is at once magical and mystical. She is acquiring a mystique all her own. From now on, she will also have a status that transcends the ordinary. You – her children – have lavished attention on her. While she was on her death bed, mortally wounded by neglect, you quickly came to her rescue to save her life by binding up and healing her wounds. You are wiping away her tears. You are beautifying her again and treating her like the jewel she is. A priceless treasure. You are lifting her out of the abyss of an ignominious dark age into the bright sunshine of a renaissance. You are adorning her with the garland of your affection. You are honoring her with your homage.

Sometime ago I heard it said that one of us shed his blood on the school grounds and gave what President Abraham Lincoln called “the last full measure of devotion” defending GSSA during the Nigeria-Biafra war. I must confess that I do not know whether that is a fact or just a myth. If it is a fact, then that one act alone would have made this place hallowed ground. Even if that is not the case, you have now sanctified GSSA with your love, with your labor and your caring. You are consecrating her with your unswerving loyalty and abiding affection. You are creating a new reality.

What is this reality?

You are bequeathing future generations of GSSA alumni an inheritance that will not easily fade away – a heritage of honor and homage to the alma mater and a legacy of love of the alma mater and loyalty to the alma mater.

Through your example, you are making a very powerful statement to a nation that seems to have lost its mind. This statement is simply this:

“EDUCATION IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. EDUCATION IS VITAL. YOU NEGLECT EDUCATION AT YOUR PERIL EDUCATION IS SO IMPORTANT THAT WE ARE WILLING TO INVEST OUR OWN TOIL AND TREASURE TO RESTORE AT LEAST THIS ONE SCHOOL, OUR ALMA MATER.”

After the sterling example you have set, never again – so long as there are surviving alumni – will GSSA be neglected, let alone face the threat of closure and extinction. She will be known as a school that love has rebuilt, that love and loyalty will sustain. She is built to last, by the grace of God, for “as long as the sun and moon endureth”.

You will occupy a special place in her heart through the ages and so long as it pleases God to let her stand. You will always be known as the generation that found her defiled and desecrated and set to work to save her life; to save her from shame; and to rescue her honor.

Ladies and gentlemen, GSSA is special in another respect. I do not know of any other school or institution whose motto makes reference to the name of God. There must be one but I just haven’t found it. This makes GSSA unique. In psalm 111, the bible tells us that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And all who follow his precepts have good understanding.” Therefore it makes sense that if you claim to be a fount, not only of learning, but of wisdom and love, first you should be rebuilt by love. Even more important, your motto should reflect the bedrock biblical principle of fear of God.

Who better to promulgate this injunction and enunciate this bedrock biblical principle than Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ. Peter the metaphorical rock on which Jesus Christ built His church. “Fear God. Honor the king”, he admonished us.

And so the fear of God must always be the guiding principle of all those who pass through GSSA.

For acknowledging the primacy of the fear of God – and living by that precept – and for being rebuilt on a foundation of love, from now on GSSA, this “fount of learning, wisdom, love” has become “God’s own school”.

Thank you. And may God bless us all. And may God bless and preserve GSSA for countless future generations.

“Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.”