The Summit is in Sight!

(Chairman’s New Year Message, 1/1/2011)

Fellow alumni of GSSA:

This new dawn and new day bring us something special. They herald a new year – time for reflection and resolution.

Looking back on the year just ended we have every reason to feel that we have gotten off to a good start – but only a start. GSSAAA came of age in 2010. We got down to business in earnest. We rolled up our sleeves and got our hands dirty and our feet wet in a major way by actually restoring two major buildings at GSSA – the Exam Hall and the Main Classroom building.

When 2010 began, there was no assurance that we could even complete the restoration of the Examination Hall. A year ago, only 30 alumni had responded to the call to make a contribution to the fund that would enable the execution of our projects at GSSA. But by the end of the year, more than two times that number had responded. Thanks to your generosity, selflessness and hard work, we were able, not only to restore the Exam Hall, but also to take on the Main Classroom Building and complete that larger project faster than we did its predecessor. We also resuscitated the game of soccer thus introducing a new and important dimension to life at GSSA. Worthy of particular note, the management structure we put in place to overseer our projects at GSSA was put to the test. And members of the Technical, Engineering, Architectural, Management and Surveys (TEAMS) Committee rose to the challenge and performed with flying colors. To say that we could not have achieved the success we did without their crucial role is to say the obvious. We owe them a special debt of gratitude.

It is now time, in the words of Professor Emmanuel Mba (please), to ratchet up our activities “to the next level”. Our past accomplishments now give us the standing that should in turn give us the confidence to seek outside financial help. Our work on the ground has reached critical mass. It now has the potential to trigger and catalyze a chain reaction that will cause substantial outside funds to cascade into our coffers. But I choose my words carefully. This is not preordained. A potential never guarantees certainty that it will be realized. It will not happen just because we wish it or think it is high time it happened. We must play our cards right and do what it takes to set this in motion.

The American environment presents us with a configuration of possibilities. There are numerous opportunities out there. But these opportunities are like treasures buried at various levels deep within the earth. They will not come looking for us. We must bestir ourselves and go out there and prospect for these opportunities and explore and exploit them and thereby avail ourselves of the legendary beneficence and generosity of the American people. I must emphasize that we must still continue to support our alma mater with our wallets for benefactors are more likely to lend a helping hand if they see that we are continuing to put our money where our mouth is. As usual we shall need some good luck and God’s help. But it is said that luck favors those who are prepared and God helps those who help themselves. So, first of all, we must roll up our sleeves again and do what we need to do. If we work hard enough, we should come by sufficient funds to complete the restoration of School, Okpara and Ibiam Houses by the time of our 2011 convention in Houston, Texas. That should be the goal. It can be done. It should be done. We should do what it takes to meet that challenge for when we complete those three houses, our work will still not be done but we will know that we have turned the corner as far as restoring physical structures is concerned. It will take a lot of work – hard work. All hands must be on deck.

Since money is the oxygen that sustains our efforts, what it all boils down to is that we will have to give added impetus to our fundraising efforts. This will have to occur on all fronts simultaneously with our fundraising engine firing on all cylinders. We shall continue to make a major push towards seeking the support of our alumni. Every one should try and donate whatever they can afford. In this regard it is important for all to realize that pledges should never be made for show. Making a pledge just to receive applause without any intention of redeeming the pledge trivializes our entire effort. Once one makes a pledge, one is honor bound to make every serious effort to redeem the pledge. If necessary this could be done in installments.

The new element in our fundraising initiative this year will be the quest for outside funding. We shall have to scour the American landscape for sources of extramural funding. We shall contact philanthropic organizations and foundations and apply for funds. This will take a lot of work because, contrary to conventional wisdom, funding from these organizations is not easy to come by considering the fact that there are millions of charitable organizations out there competing for these funds. Failure is much more likely than success in this regard but we are not afraid of failure. Those who fear failure never succeed. We are encouraged by the fact that, annually, the American people spend close to a quarter of a trillion dollars on charitable causes. So with some luck, we should be able to get a slice of that pie if we approach the pursuit of funding with discipline, determination and doggedness. Already our preliminary foray into retail fundraising has shown it to be quite promising. Those who are so inclined – and it is my hope that many of us will be so inclined – should therefore continue to do retail fundraising since it remains a fairly reliable source of funds. It can be rewarding too since you will learn something – mostly something good – about human nature. A few people may disappoint you but very many more will hand you pleasant surprises. Some will inspire you. We should also pursue other initiatives and tactics for extramural fundraising. Fundraising dinners, dinner dances and direct appeals to church congregations may be worth exploring in some communities. We are all scattered all over North America and live in diverse communities. Different localities have different attributes and opportunities that may lend themselves to exploitation in different ways from a fundraising perspective. But every locality will present some opportunities some of which may be quite unique. Different individuals among us should therefore survey their particular environment and the character of their community and tailor their fundraising activities and tactics to fit the kinds of funding opportunities that may be available locally based on the character of their local community. The common denominator will be work, at times fairly hard work. One should always remember that the greatest advocate and sales pitch in our pursuit of funding for our cause is the nature of the cause itself and the work we have done so far – supported by our own wallets – in furtherance of our goal.

After we complete the restoration of School, Okpara and Ibiam houses, we should pivot and tilt our efforts and energies at least in part in a new direction. We shall devote more attention to, and channel more resources to, upgrading and improving the quality of the education at GSSA today. And education as we all understand it, being products of GSSA, is more than book learning. We need not be reminded that GSSA is not just a collection of buildings. It is a “fount of learning, wisdom, love”. In recent years this fount has not been running well and has been in danger of running dry. It is time to begin to address the quality of the water issuing forth from the wellspring. We will have to use our ingenuity to provide an effective solution to this daunting problem.

GSSA should be a laboratory for innovation and experimentation in the art of electronic transfer and dissemination of knowledge and information using the internet and other tools and technologies of the 21^st century. These tools make knowledge and information and the lectures of great teachers potentially accessible to even the remotest corners of the earth. Therefore, potentially, only a few mouse clicks should separate GSSA students from vast troves of useful knowledge from around the world especially those pertinent to their level of education. This fact underpins one of the creative possible solutions to the thorny problem of the quality of pedagogy at GSSA. For instance, consider this: what if it were the case today that we had a trove of electronic video recordings of the lectures of our great teachers of the Akabogu era such as Mr. Edmund Wilson (“Equa”) in Organic, Inorganic and Physcial Chemistry; Mr. E.E. Bassey (“Mantissa”) and Mr. Orji (“Unwound”) in Mathematics; Mr. Vancheeswaran in Zoology and Mr. Matthews in Physics to name a few? (I am sure that there were great teachers in other eras such as the Tagbo and Otisi eras but I can only talk about those under whose binding spell I was fortunate to come.) All we would need to do would be to publish these video recordings on the internet and thereby make them accessible to GSSA students; or give DVD’s or mini SD’s of these lectures to GSSA students. Unfortunately, we do not have such a trove and even if they existed, they would need to be updated and upgraded to accommodate new knowledge. But what we could do is create something similar. Therefore, I hereby propose that we embark on a multi year video learning project in the course of which we should, if necessary, contact the great secondary schools of the English speaking world and seek to obtain video recordings of lectures in important disciplines such as the Sciences, Mathematics and English Language. We should contact Eton, Harrow, Phillip’s Academy, Exeter and any of the other great high schools of Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia and, if necessary, Ghana and India. We shall explore the possibility of making video recordings of lectures to be made available to secondary schools in sub-Saharan Africa including GSSA. Some schools may turn us down but we are likely to get a sympathetic response from some others. And that will be all we need. Alternatively or even simultaneously, we should also identify GSSA alumni who are expert teachers in the various disciplines and have them record lectures. For this strategy – the video learning initiative – to be successful there has to be electrical power. We should therefore give well deserved priority to investing in a reliable source of power at GSSA.

Looking at the road ahead, it is clear that we shall face challenges. There is a mountain of work to do. We must climb this mountain not just because it is there but because on top of this mountain is our prize – a completely restored GSSA, once again vibrant, once again preeminent. We have to reach the top to claim our prize. But today, as a new year dawns, the clouds have cleared. The summit is in sight! We can see the path to the top. It will still be an uphill climb but we already have a good head start and our legs are strong and we are in good spirits. With God’s help and the support of the American people, we will trudge along and claw our way up to the top. It will be quite a slog but we shall be buoyed by the enduring camaraderie and good fellowship of a wonderful and extraordinary group of people – the brotherhood of GSSA alumni.

Finally, by way of a resolution, we turn to the words of the poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in “A Psalm of Life”:

“Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.”

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

Happy New Year!

Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.

Obi Nwasokwa, M.D., Ph.D., FACC
Charles Low House 1961 – 1970
School Captain, GSSA, 1967-1970
Chairman, Board of Trustees, GSSAAA