We Must Pass the Test of History

Crisis, leadership and GSSA 

(The address of the Chairman of GSSAAA BOT, Dr. Obi Nwasokwa, to the Convention of GSSA alumni on Saturday August 14,2010)

Mr. President, Mr. Principal, Dr. Okezie, Dr. Adibe, Professor Mba, Dr. Oboka, all please; and please to all my other seniors, fellow alumni, wives and children of GSSA; ladies and gentlemen:

 

We have come together again in this annual ritual to celebrate and reaffirm our brotherhood. For this event, we put everything else aside and take a time out. That is what you do when you consider something important. And to us, it is important to gather together to show our allegiance and loyalty to that small patch of planet earth we call our alma mater. It is a place that, to us, is like no other because it means so much to us and holds a special place in our hearts. In this get together, GSSA is front and center as we affirm in clear accents the gratitude we owe her and how for life we will revere our school.

 

It is also a time to reconnect with one another, look over one another. See who is fat and who is bald; whose face is wrinkled and furrowed and whose hair is gray. In other words, marvel at the work of Father Time. And with all of these disguises we all now wear, courtesy of Father Time, see if we can still recognize people we once knew very well. Please forgive me if I don’t recognize you at first blush. Frankly there have been times I could not recognize myself. And this is quite literally true. On one occasion, I was looking at a picture and wondering who was the fat guy standing next to my wife. The look on her face? I need’t say more. But when I really came to realize that I had reached a tipping point was when this cute adorable four and a half year old girl approached me, eyes glittering with curiosity. She patted my belly and chirped: “Is there a baby in there?” You can always trust children to tell it like it is. I took it seriously but after that day she remained adorable but she had earned herself a new name; spelt B-R-A-T!

 

This year’s convention is extra special. For we have in our midst both the principal of GSSA and the best exemplar of alumni of GSSA and the best role model for students of GSSA, one of our own, one of the greatest alumni of GSSA, Professor Ndubuisi Eke. Let me say a special welcome to them.

 

Please give them a hand. Mr. Principal, Pastor Azu, Professor Eke: We thank God that you could come and be with us.

 

Crisis as a call to greatness

This is a time of crisis for GSSA. Crises will always happen in the course of human events. The only thing predictable about them is their unpredictability. Crises always spell peril and the threat and unwelcome prospect that things will get worse in one way or the other at times disastrously so.

 

But crises are manageable and often also spell promise. For crises provide opportunities of historic proportions if managed properly. Crises are always a call to greatness. For what crises call for above all else is leadership – extraordinary leadership that results in extraordinary deeds that lead to greatness. It is in crises that the great leaders emerge.

 

Take the crisis of war, the best known example being WW II. When a man by the name of Adolf Hitler precipitated an existential crisis for the countries of Europe, he initially had a free ride. It was a crisis for virtually all the countries of Europe. But most of those countries were not fortunate enough to have the kind of leadership that could manage the crisis. Paul Reynaud and Marshal Petain in France were weak. Even though the French military and armaments could have given the German military serious opposition and perhaps averted defeat, they lacked the leadership that would have given them the will that could match their armaments. “My country is defeated”, Marshall Petain lamented, is said to have literally moaned and wept and handed France over to her new master.

 

Among the proud people of Britain, it was a different story. A man by the name of Winston Churchill emerged. To him defeat and surrender were simply not options. His only goal was victory. Yet at the time – the spring of 1940 – talk of victory for Britain was as farfetched and absurd as America talking of landing a man on the moon before the Wright brothers. His country did not have the armaments strong enough to match Hitler’s. But they were fortunate to have Winston Churchill. The French warned Churchill that “in three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken.” And the warning was not without basis. Churchill in that wry inimitable English manner, countered: “Some chicken! Some neck!”

 

On June 4 1940 when failure and defeat stared his people in the face, he was defiant. He told his people that “We shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France and on the seas and oceans; we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender.”

 

But these were mainly tactical issues. To what strategic end? In other words what was his aim? What was his goal: One word. Victory. “Victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be: for without victory, there is no survival.” For his part, what was he going to do? What would his personal role be in all this? He said; “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” Blood, toil, tears and sweat – simple Anglo-Saxon words that every English child could understand and relate to. No Latin derived words here. But the words all spell one word: sacrifice.

 

Churchill expected sacrifice not just of all his people but also of himself.  The rest as they say is history.

 

To succeed in a time of crisis, a leader must set a clear goal. And he or she must not let the difficulties of the moment be the determinant of the goal. Never take counsel of your difficulties. Never surrender to the odds. Defy them.  Also the leader must not ask others to sacrifice unless she herself or he himself is willing to sacrifice and be seen clearly to sacrifice. Otherwise she or he would be a phony – a hypocrite – who says “Do as I say but not as I do.”

 

 Past crises at GSSA

Now consider GSSA and the crises she has endured. Her best principals have been the ones who managed crises successfuly. Conversely the worst may have been the ones who faced crises and capitulated. Someone acquiesced to the closure of the boarding houses and thereby allowed darkness to descend and decay to devastate the school. Someone watched as the roofs of GSSA buildings were being systematically dismantled and carted away and the buildings wantonly destroyed. Some one looked on as Afikpo house was being used as an open lavatory.

 

But there were principals who faced crises and rose to the challenge and performed magnificently.

 

There was the crisis of birth. Mr. Charles Low was the man of the hour. He defined what kind of school GSSA would become – one in which it was just as important to learn to play the piano and the organ; to act in plays; to dance atilogwu and to play cricket on the one hand, as it was to master Latin declensions and conjugations and do differentiation and integration and study Shakespeare, on the other. A highly cultured and disciplined environment – one in which God was feared and the king honored. He set the school on a course of excellence not just in academics but also in sports and extracurricular activities. He taught his boys the value of reading wide and learning things of general interest not all of which were taught in classrooms. He insisted they read novels. You could even be punished if you read your textbook at the wrong time.

 

There was the crisis of discipline. Dr. G. C. Akabogu was the right man. When he arrived in 1962, after we rioted, he did not say: “My dear boys, please tell me. Where did things go wrong? What are your grievances? What can I do to make you happy?” Rather on his very first morning assembly he laid down the law: “My dear boys, you will do what I tell you. You will obey all the ru-u-l-es or I will pursue you with thunder and lightning.” Very memorable words. Everyone sat up. He had set the tone. He had set the course. The result was beautiful and memorable. The school enjoyed a golden age. One thing with him was that he always set an example. He did not just tell you that you must dress properly. He was meticulous about how he dressed and always dressed properly for every occasion. If you saw him in his signature white shorts, white shirt and tie; shoes and knee high hoses, his manner of dress alone told you that he meant business. He was not kidding around. He did not just tell you that you must be punctual for activities. Rather, early in the morning, he woke up before you and came to the dormitories and stampeded you out to PE for instance. He did not just say “Obey lights out”. He came by after dark to ensure that all his boys were obeying lights out. He cared. And he showed it. He knew the name of everyone of his boys starting from the School Captain to the last boy in class one.

After the war, there was the crisis of return and rebirth. The right man was Rev. Fr. Tagbo. The fires of war had scorched and scarred the school both in body and soul. He had to build it all back up again. It was very daunting. Difficulties were legion. A lesser man would have buckled under it all and surrendered to failure and defeat and given all kinds of excuses why failure was inevitable. Not Father Tagbo. Handed a lemon, he chose not to complain. Instead he made the proverbial lemonade. He restored not only the buildings but the essence of the school – the proud heritage of discipline and excellence. He did not say to his boys: “Boys I know. Things are tough. Just do what you can. I will understand” Rather he challenged his boys. He said: “Go to the moon!” Memorable words. Memorable results. His boys responded and produced the best academic results that the school had ever known. Words do matter. 

Thanks to Rev. Fr. Tagbo, today we have stalwarts like President Eze David Uche, Secretary General Ozoemena, Dr. Fidelis Mkparu, Victor Okoye, Nnaemeka Chira, Vincent Okonkwo, Charles Amalu, Patrick Mgbada  and Charles Agunobi all of whom are the pioneers of this organization.

 

The current crisis at GSSA

What we have today is an existential crisis. We hope to turn it into one of rebirth, renewal and rededication.

 

Our alma mater has been on her death bed. But for the intervention of the alumni both at home and overseas, she would have been gone. Forgive me but I have to use the metaphors and parlance of Clinical Medicine here. That is what I am familiar with.

 

In clinical medicine, we are taught to approach critically ill patients like mother GSSA paying attention first to the “A, B, C’s” – airway, breathing and circulation.

 

Professor Ndu Eke as the good doctor he is went for the airway and the breathing. He started restoring the GSSA library. This is the metaphorical lung of the school where the school breathes and the boys have the benefit of the fresh air of knowledge stored in books.

 

We of GSSAAA found mother GSSA’s pulse weak and her blood pressure low. So GSSAAA rushed in and quickly ran an intravenous line through her veins by digging 2 boreholes along with other accoutrements thereby ensuring that life-giving water continues to run through her veins and arteries. With this intervention which cost about $20,000 or 3 million naira, mother GSSA perked up. She then complained of pain in her heart and her head.

 

Next GSSAAA turned their attention to the heart of the school – the WAEC or Examination Hall. We found a grievous wound which required extensive surgery. On January 31, 2010, we started surgery on the heart wound. That operation cost us 7 million naira or $47,000. Now that that wound has virtually healed, we can breathe easier. We can rest assured that youngsters who are members of this brotherhood will not be injured by the collapse of an unstable waterlogged ceiling while sitting in the Exam Hall, the very heart of GSSA. The WAEC Hall can now be trusted to at least shelter them from the elements.

 

A good mind can only be part of a well conditioned body. That is why we resuscitated soccer. That cost about $2,500 or 350,000 naira. We plan to resuscitate more games because games are important and have always been an integral part of GSSA culture and must be taken seriously. We shall target table tennis and lawn tennis next.

 

We have moved on and have now turned our attention to the head wound of mother GSSA, the the Main Classroom Block (MCB), perhaps the most important building on campus. Work on the MCB started on Friday, 8/6/10.  That work will cost more than 12 million naira or roughly $80,000. A more realistic estimate is probably $100,000 or 15 million naira since we will also be renovating the lavatories.

 

After that ugly wound is treated and healed, mother GSSA’s condition will be upgraded from “critical” to “serious”. Only then will GSSAAA proceed to address the abdominal wounds represented by the sordidness we see in the 3 iconic Houses Ibiam, Okpara and School. When those are done only then shall we be sure that mother GSSA is no longer in “serious “ condition – that she is likely to survive. But our work will not be done because there are terrible leg wounds that are still festering in the guise of the conditions of Mboto, Niger and Ramat Houses. Without taking care of those leg wounds mother GSSA will stay bed ridden and will remain unable to stand on her own two feet the way she used to do.

 

In the past year, we have also formed the Technical, Engineering, Architectural, Management and Surveys (TEAMS) Committee under the Chairmanship of a very committed alumnus, Arc Patrick Uyanwune. This is a committee of top notch professionals in the building professions. They are the doers of deeds who will be in the arena and guide the restoration of GSSA. Their role has been crucial in the past year and will remain indispensable in the future. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude.

 

We have other things on our minds. The BOT proposes the formation of a new committee, the Artifacts and Restored Treasures of the School (ARTS) committee. This committee is charged with collecting artifacts and past and contemporary treasures of the school and displaying them properly in buildings. Such treasures include for instance past photographs of the principal and masters and those of sports teams etc etc. They should be enlarged and posted and displayed prominently in a dignified manner in buildings and other places. This way, the boys of GSSA will always see reminders of their glorious past and will then be more likely to live up to that past. Engr. Tete Mbuk has agreed to lead the ARTS committee. So far GSSAAA Secretary General has agreed to join him. We need more volunteers to join. Those interested should contact my friend, Tete Mbuk at tetembuk@yahoo.com.

 

Fundraising

The BOT proposes that the target for fundraising for the next fiscal year (i.e. from this convention to the next one in August 2011) be $300,000. In this regard, I have to give you heartwarming news. An alumnus of another Government College has donated $2,000 to us just 2 days ago. He chooses to remain anonymous. So I will not reveal his name. To him I say: We can’t thank you enough. May you never lack. May God bless you.

 

The keeper of the flame

The GSSAAA Board of Trustees has yet another proposal. Professor Ndu Eke has done us proud. Professor Ndu Eke has been the keeper of the flame of GSSA when the flame was about to be extinguished. Sir, you were the ray of hope that challenged despair – stubborn hope that good will triumph over evil and that ultimately light will overcome darkness. Sir, you lifted and rescued and carried the standard – our Roman eagle – and denied the enemy access to it. You carried the Torch and the Banner of GSSA and at times all alone waiting quietly for help with these burdens.

 

You are, Sir, what my Jewish friends call a mensch. Now who is a mensch. A mensch has been defined as “someone to admire and emulate, someone of noble character”. The key attributes here are: “character, rectitude, dignity, a sense of what is right, responsible, decorous”. A mensch is a pillar of the community – the go-to guy who can be trusted to offer help in time of need or mediate disputes fairly and to promote the interest of the community as much as his own.

 

Our people say that the blacksmith who does not know how to make a gun should look at the tail of a kite. And so, Mr. Principal, if you are looking for a role model for your students, you need look no further. Here he is in the person of Professor Ndu Eke. Tell them and tell them repeatedly to aspire to be like Professor Ndu Eke.

 

The GSSAAA Board of Trustees hereby proposes that in view of all he has done for our alma mater, the GSSA community should honor Professor Ndu Eke by naming the GSSA library after him. In other words the Board proposes that, the GSSA Library should now and forever be known as The Professor Ndu Eke Library.

 

The Captain of the Ship

To achieve our goal which is the complete restoration of our alma mater, we must continue to sacrifice. This effort is not a token gesture designed merely to convince somebody that at least we care. I say again that the goal is the complete restoration of GSSA, this magnificent “fount of learning, wisdom, love”. Whether that convinces or does not convince somebody one way or the other is irrelevant to us.

 

But GSSA is more than buildings. GSSA is above all a state of mind. For things to be right again with GSSA, everything has to be in place. All the pieces have to come together and be in their proper places. All the stars and the planets have to be in alignment. Of all these component parts, one element is most crucial. Without its being right, without its functioning right, we labor in vain.

 

That crucial component is the principal.

 

The current principal is here with us. I have met with him and held extensive discussions with him. I have taken the measure of the man. I am happy to report to you that my first impressions are favorable. I like what I see. As Margaret Thatcher said of Gorbachev in 1985: “He is a man we can do business with.” He gets it. He has the makings of a great principal. But he is not there yet.

 

Sir, you, as principal, are the linchpin of this entire effort. You are the most important link in this chain. If you succeed, Sir, we all succeed. If you fail, we all fail. You are the lord of this manor. You are the captain of this ship. You have the rudders, please work – work even harder – to steady this ship. This is a crisis. Therefore we expect the same sacrifice of you that we expect of ourselves. We do all we are able to do not because we are rich and do not know what else to do with our hard earned dollars but because we think GSSA is worth sacrificing for. We are merely in the role of our brothers’ keepers. As we should be. But we do not expect that anyone should see themselves in the role of the passive recipients of a limitless largesse. I believe that you are not the type of person who will do that. You want to work hard and be an active partner with us. We are all in this together. Your staff must also sacrifice by being disciplined and working extra hard and conscientiously to teach the students both in the classrooms and in the sports’ fields. That has always been the GSSA way. The times call for it. The students have to sacrifice too at the very least by making sure that the school is tidy and clean at all times. You have to insist on it. We insist on it.

 

You and you alone must decide how to get to the destination – where you want to take these youngsters who are members of this brotherhood. The destination must be a world class education. Nothing less. That is how it was in the past. That is what we expect now. You must be a man on a mission not just one working for pay. You have the compass, please set the right course. Show the boys the way. Give them structure. Give them discipline. You have to teach them what is in the syllabus and more. Teach them about photons and protons; about RNA and DNA; and differentiation and differential equations. They must read the likes of Shakespeare and Achebe. They must also learn about Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mandela. And yes they must learn about Obama.

 

You must teach them all these and more. Seek to give them a moral compass that does not shift with the wind.

 

As the hymn says, teach them:

“All the arts of friendliness
Truthful speech and honest action
Courage, patience, steadfastness
How to master self and temper
How to make their conduct fair
When to speak and when be silent
When to do and when forbear

Make them loving, joyous, peaceful
Rich in goodness, gentleness
Strong in self control and faithful
Kind in thought and deed
For He (our Lord) Sayeth: “What ye do for others
Ye are doing unto me”

Teach them to love humanity regardless of clan, state of origin, tribal, ethnic, national or racial origin and regardless of religion and belief system.

 

Above all, teach them to fear God and honor the king. That is the essence of GSSA.

 

You too can rise to the occasion and be a great principal. You carry an illustrious name. De Gaulle. It is fascinating and wonderful to learn today that your grandfather was an aide to General (later President) Charles de Gaulle. Be the De Gaulle of GSSA. As a tank commander, Charles de Gaulle was one of the few French officers who actually fought the Germans in 1940 during the battle of France and recorded successes. He was the only French leader willing to defy the odds in the crisis of WW II by opposing French surrender to Nazi Germany. De Gaulle would have been the Winston Churchill of France but for the fact that he was a fairly junior officer – a Brigadier General – and no one would listen to him.When his superiors disagreed, he escaped to Britain and carried on the defiance and the resistance from there, thereby becoming the embodiment of French honor and manhood.

 

So please, Mr. Principal, be our De Gaulle, the defier of odds.

 

One female comedian – let’s call her Obiageli even though she is a white American since that is the only name we know- Obiageli told of her encounter with her grandmother who asked her this loaded question (a twinkle in her eyes and with a mischievous wink): “Obiageli, sweetie, when am I going to be a great grandmother?” Without missing a beat, Obiageli shot back: “Grandma, if you wanna be great, go do something extraordinary.”

 

“If you want to be great, go do something extraordinary”.

 

And so, Mr. Principal, you too can be great like Akabogu and Tagbo before you. And like Charles de Gaulle, your namesake. But to be great, Sir, you have to do something extraordinary. These are difficult and extraordinary times for GSSA. Times of crisis. But they offer the perfect opportunity for greatness. You can rise to the challenge and attain greatness. We cannot and must not tell you what to do and how to set about it. Everyone has his style. You are De Gaulle Azu. Not George Akabogu and not Nicholas Tagbo. But we know this for sure. For you to be great, you will have to work hard – harder than before. You will have to sacrifice.

 

 Be ye men of high purpose

As for our alumni, let us bear in mind that men like Mr. Charles Low, Dr. Akabogu, Rev. Fr. Tagbo and O.O. Otisi labored hard. They invested extraordinary amounts of time and energy into making us the men we are. They imbued us with the right values. They did not seek to create robots who can read well and speak well and write well and count well. They sought to create humanists who will pass the ultimate test, the test that counts the most – the test of history. Men who will not lose their heads when every one is losing theirs and subscribing to the insanity going on in our land. Men who will not stand by and watch GSSA defiled, desecrated and finally die. They sought to raise children to become men who will do what is right no matter what others do.

 

In a crisis, unity and unity of purpose become imperatives. When the British people faced Hitler in war, they had no choice but to forget their differences, close ranks and unite in a coalition government. When the American revolutionaries faced the superpower of their day, they knew the choices: “We must all hang together or assuredly we shall hang separately.” Ben Franklin warned them. O well, okay, I know. This is hyperbole because this is not war. No one is being called upon to shed blood or even tears. All that is asked for is time, toil and treasure. In a word: a measure of sacrifice. Not the supreme sacrifice.

 

Let us not waste time in trifles, stoking and nursing petty grievances and resentments. We are better than that. Let us not fiddle while our Rome burns. Let us remember that, as Dr. Ezeife said, this is, all said and done, “a labor of love” from which none of us profits personally in a conventional sense.

 

We cheapen and degrade our magnificent heritage if we fail to live up to it. We then let down our great principals and masters. Men of GSSA should act ….well like men of GSSA. Men of GSSA should do things befitting alumni of a world class academy. If we claim that our school was every bit as good as the very best in the world – as good as Eton, Harrow, Phillips Academy and Exeter, we must not act as if it was inferior by tolerating the sordid state of our once magnificent alma mater

 

The Very Rev. Tagbo challenged us to “Go to the Moon!” He is watching wondering what kind of men his boys have grown up to be. Please let us not let him down by setting our sights low now. Dr. Akabogu molded and forged our characters on an anvil in which thunder and lightning were some of the tools in his toolbox. Please let us not act as if his labors were all in vain.

 

So I say to you today: Be ye men of high purpose. Let us rise to the challenge of our time. We are equal to it. Let us rebuild and restore our great alma mater. Let us give youngsters who are fledgling but full-fledged members of this brotherhood the same opportunity we had for a world class education. The example we set for them today is the one they will emulate tomorrow.

 

There is power in this organization. But the power resides in each of you. It is the power to decide to sacrifice or not to sacrifice – to support or not to support our agenda; to provide strong support because you can or to withhold strong support even though you clearly can; to find excuses for not providing the level of support you are able to provide or not find such excuses, to write a check or not write a check – in support of GSSA. If you are still reluctant to write this check, it might help if you view it as paying your outstanding unpaid school fees. For GSSA was heavily subsidized when compared to schools of comparable stature all around the world. We received a world class education but did not pay world class fees. So we did not pay for nearly what our education was worth and we may now begin to try to catch up. If we all share this burden, it will be lighter.

As Okata Anazodo recently reminded us in his post of Wednesday August 4, Martin Luther King Jr. said that: “The content of a man’s character, is not where he stands in times of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy” As our President, Dr. Uche, said recently and as he told us again today: “The bible says it all: ‘Where a man’s heart is, so is his treasure.’” Our heart is at GSSA. So our treasure belongs there. Therefore: “Whatever in life that we do own shall alma mater’s name proclaim.”

We must continue to pursue this course which Dr. Ezeife has called “this magnificent obsession” and see it through to resounding success in spite of all challenges and difficulties.

 

However violent the storm, however strong the crosswinds, let us stay the course. Stay true to your compass. Be “constant as the Northern star, of whose true-fix’d and resting quality”, Shakespeare tells us, “there is no fellow in the firmament.” Remain focused as the beam of a laser

 

You are eagles. Eagles do not run after flies. You have to do great deeds. You have to show the example. When it comes to fighting on behalf of education, you have to be the vanguard and the shock troops. You have to be the metaphorical “umkhonto we sizwe” (spear of the nation) of our land. Otherwise you become part of that abhorrent and abominable and insane situation prevailing in our land.

 

As they say “No pain. No gain.” There is nothing good that does not involve sacrifice – that does not come at a price. Like Professor Ndu Eke, you too have to carry the Torch and the Banner of the alma mater. Our people are dying in darkness. You have to show the light. You have to lead the way. In an era that shames history, set yourselves apart. Be different. Go against the grain. Do something that will make history proud. You will thereby pass the test of history. And write your names in the book of history – in letters of gold.

 

May God bless us all. Long live GSSA! And may God bless and preserve her for countless future generations.