RESCUING OUR ALMA MATER

After a most enjoyable anniversary weekend spent in Warri by many elated old students, we must now sober up and reflect on what we saw. But not without first expressing our profound gratitude to Fegocowosa National President Snr Chako and his Exco, plus the organizing committee ably led by Snr Maureen as well as all the branches and individuals involved, who put up a most memorable and commendable event, in spite of the huge logistical challenges involved.

Snr Chako and team, thank you very much for your exemplary service to the Association!

As we enjoyed our reunion, many of us took time to inspect different parts of the school and ask questions not just from current students, but also from more recently graduated old students. And one just cannot see how any old student could not have felt heart broken at the sorry sight our school has become and the gory stories about how the school now operates.

Fellow Fedgocolians, to see our school today is a painful sight. Apart from the dilapidated state of most buildings, the school has developed in a completely haphazard manner, with funny buildings put up in strange places and no visible sense of proper planning. You don’t even want to see the staff quarters. We were told that there are now more than 5,000 students in the school, with class streams stretching from A-L. In fact, we were told that the current JSS1 (form 1) set has about 900 students. 

But more worrying are some of the other aspects of the story. For instance that the vast majority of students are now day students. Fancy that! It means it's no longer really a Unity School. We are also told that there are cults in the school beginning to carry out some really dangerous activities! Can you beat that? And then guess what? They now regularly hire out the assembly hall for wedding receptions and other social events. How does that play out with respect to security of the students? And in any case, to who do the proceeds from this trade go? The school? Any surprise then that we are told that the last school certificate results were horrendous? 

Fellow Fedgocolians, to cut a long story short, our school today is no longer in a position to give the sort of world class high school education and character building environment that it gave to us. Thus we need to ask ourselves, is it fair that an institution that gave us such a grand, globally competitive high school education has been allowed to degenerate to this extent?  

If we look back over the last 10 years or so, we will recall that because of the energetic leadership of Fegocowosa and our consequent increased ‘visibility’ over the period, we have developed a great ‘high school brand’ in Nigeria and have become a well-regarded alumni association. But as things stand today with our Alma Mater, we are at risk of becoming the great alumni brand that doesn’t match the school it proclaims to represent. In other words, what’s the point being a prestigious alumni association, if the school we represent and promote is anything but prestigious?

That’s why we now need to accept that our current model of ad hoc infrastructure renovation interventions by the alumni only addresses ‘symptoms’ and not ‘causes’. We are now at a watershed moment. Our school critically needs to be rescued. Its position as a world class high school needs to be restored. Amongst all the things that need to be done is a reversion to the proper way of doing things. The basics. Our school was never meant to just help students get a certificate, good or bad. It was to build the character of its students in line with a higher ethos, for the benefit of Nigeria and humanity.

Thankfully, speaking to several fellow old students during the anniversary weekend, virtually everyone was angry. Both Fegocowosa President Chako and past President Ambode, expressed clear sentiments about enough being enough. They both made clear that we were here to ‘take our school back’. Folks, we better do! We simply cannot and should not accept this thing we are seeing as our school. It is not! We just have to begin a process to take control of our school and reestablish its founding ethos and purpose and work hard to preserve and maintain that high standard going forward. Nobody else will do it for us.

For starters, FGC Warri must revert to a majority boarding school. You can hardly be effective at building the character of a school of mostly day students. We must take the necessary action to revert to a manageable number of students. Maximum streams of A-E per set and a maximum of 35 students per class = 1,050 students in the entire school. Start this from one year and phase out the current crowds over time. Restore the highly competitive entry requirements. Restore the school’s essential culture- initiation! Daily inspection, breakfast, school, lunch, SIESTA, games, dinner, prep, junior girls and junior boys prep over, senior girls and senior boys prep over, LIGHTS OUT! Inter house sports and inter house games! The annual inter house cultural competition. The annual prize giving ceremony. SRC. Sporting facilities!

To help with re establishing the school’s way of life, we now have plenty of retired old students who would be willing to volunteer (for a stipend) as well as other old student volunteers who are prepared to spend time in school as ‘coaches’ helping to re-inculcate these ethos and restore discipline. The association can pay for accommodation, feeding and transportation for groups of volunteers for specific periods. In other parts of the world, alumni associations have established endowment funds that help to defray the costs of running their Alma Maters. We will just need to be creative and we have the depth of talent to make this happen.

Luckily, Snr Chako told us that the Exco will call a retreat to discus the matter of school shortly. We must take this seriously. We must do it and do it soon. And coming out of the retreat, we must take steps to take effective control of how our school is run. We have the clout to make that happen too. To leave our school to the Nigerian factor is to let it go. We need to think smart and act smart to redeem FGC WARRI! 

If we do not, then one dares to say that there would be no need for Fegocowosa if the school we are doing all this for is this current school!

Pro unitate!