Crowther Memorial College, CMC, the first secondary school in what can be described as a substantial part of present day Kogi State turned 50 last Friday, January 24, 2014. The commemoration was marked with a Thanksgiving Service at Crowther Memorial Church with Most Rev. E. A. S. Egbunu, the Archbishop of Lokoja Province, Anglican Communion of Nigeria officiating alongside some senior priests of the Diocese of Lokoja.
The Thanksgiving Service culminated a week long of activities staged in remembrance of January 24 1964 when the College, which was named after the first African Bishop, Rt. Rev. Samuel Ajayi Crowther, was founded. The students, busy on all fronts except academics, participated in sporting activities, drama and cultural dances to the delight of all. Verily, the entire staff of the school led by the Principal, Mrs E. B. Berida, who were all clad in a uniform attire that bespoke them, did their best to make the day worthwhile. Everyone cast aside the miseries of the school and embraced the sunny side.
During the church service, the highly respected Archbishop Egbunu effected something that communicated the obvious. He requested students of the school to stand. They stood forming close to 90 percent of the entire gathering. He then asked those whose father or mother attended the college to identify themselves; only two showed up. He didn’t buttress this as that on its merit suggests how long gone, the glory of the aged college is.
He went down memory lane to recount how a then student of CMC visited his father’s station during the yuletide when he was still much younger. The student taught him and some others the very first christmas carols they knew. He also taught them other things that made their christmas fun including how to be smartly dressed. According to the Cleric, so awesome were the things this particular student of CMC taught them that “if a corps member had done that today, they will say he deserves a State Award.”
That essentially reveals what was been offered to the students then, he said. Now, juxtapose that instance with what an old student of the 1973 class of the school, Rev. F. O. D. Eleson, told me regarding the present state of the school and you’ll behold how down south things have gone. He said: “in so many areas, it (CMC) has fallen including the standard of education and every other thing you can think of.”
Indeed, all the Old Students with whom I spoke unanimously agreed that the current deplorable state of the school remains a far cry from what the school was in the yore. As recent as 2004 when the set of Ms Ruth Shiaka passed out, she still said: “it was much more better in my days than what it is presently.” A tour round the school gives the school away as a relic of its former self with decaying infrastructure at every turn. Little wonder, the College which initially was a boarding with all its attendant facilities has now been made a full day school.
Only last year, the ceiling of what had since inception been the staff room of the College caved in. Not even in the spirit of the 50th Anniversary celebration was the place fixed. The hitherto staff office has been allowed to rot away while the school adopted an empty laboratory as its new staff room. Still, there are fears that worse may soon be the case of offices occupied by the vice principals and principal which share the same block with the collapsed staff room.
In one of the 262-feet-long solid and imposing one-storey blocks of classrooms as it then was, the entire upper floor has been sealed off against use. This is because the entire railing that should prevent students from falling off has itself fallen. In the two upstairs housing classrooms, the shutters are no longer in place thus exposing careless students to the mishap of being severely injured in an event of any slip.
These and more make it very difficult for one to believe the school is just 50 years old. The facilities in the school will easily force you estimate the College to have lasted over 70 years! Is it a wonder that the protem PRO of CMC Old Students Association, Mr Dele Nofi said, “we have made some tours round the school and discovered many places as deplorable but the focus is on resuscitating the school and we have been making efforts.”
Asked why the Old Students allowed things to get so bad in the College, Mr Nofi, who is of the 1969 class, said: “when we were in Kwara State, we were very active. But with the perennial problem of creating new state, attention was shifted towards scrambling for offices. But later on when it dawned on us that the school is about clocking 50, we have reassembled ourselves into a formidable association of old students so as to contribute our quota.”
And what is this quota they are meaning to contribute? Hear him: “we are organising a N50m Endowment Fund for the resuscitation of the school building and other things. I know that all hands are on deck on that one.” He said it was initially scheduled to coincide with the Anniversary but had to be shelved in order to allow people to massively turn out for the event.
The grape vine has it that they may just be using that as an alibi. For they know that people will use the occasion of the anniversary to lambast them for not giving back to the College that gave them so much. This, some gossips believe, led them to now throw up the ‘fund raising ruse’ to lessen the criticisms that will come their way. But if that was truly their aim, it didn’t fly for it’s clear to everyone that CMC old students have betrayed the College. Sad!
Given that the College was the premier high school within Lokoja metropolis, it is no gain saying that products of the College which include both christians and muslims must be the ones making their mark both within and beyond the state. Indeed, most natives of present-day Kwara, Kogi and neighbouring states in leadership positions today passed through the College. Unfortunately, when they should allow the school pass through their successes, they conveniently declined.
That must have led His Grace, the Archbishop to declare while delivering his homily that: “just like the manna in the Bible, if you keep back what God said you should release for the good of these students and the wider society, it will become maggot in your hands,” positing that: “The wealthiest people in the world are not those who have much money to spend on themselves but those who use their wealth to transform other lives.”
Drawing from one of the lessons of the day in Mark 14, which centred on Mary of Bethany pouring expensive perfume on Jesus, the Archbishop noted, “if the woman did not do what she did, when she did, I bet you that perfume will not have a better opportunity for its use. Sometimes, you keep what you shouldn’t keep and it rots in your hands…
“Don’t forget this, she did what she could. As for you, are you doing what you can or less than you can? Are you giving what you should give or you are keeping what you should give?” He also asked that if the people of today had what the missionaries had yet started CMC, will they do what they (the missionaries) did? This is in view of the fact that the sacrifices made by the missionaries to establish the school could have been directed towards other things with the money channelled elsewhere.
Still, they opted to go about establishing CMC for the good of people they don’t even know. I think these thought-provoking thoughts should spur the government, Old Students of the College and other well-meaning Nigerians into joining hands to redeem this College that seems men-forsaken even by Kogi State for whom the school houses the state’s Teaching Service Commission in its compound.
Crowther Memorial College wasn’t always like this. The fortunes of the school nosedived after it was taken over by the government with the bait of grant-in-aid that has become more consistent in its inconsistency. Hear the Archbishop: “there is hardly anytime I call the then governor or the present governor or the Commissioner without talking about this (the deplorable state of CMC), but they have all their reasons.”
To further illustrate how committed the Kogi State government is to CMC, not one top government official was there to grace the golden jubilee celebration. It wasn’t as if they weren’t invited, they were duly invited, but like the Most. Rev. Egbunu said: “they are too busy to the extent that what we are doing here is not important enough.” It is hoped that they wouldn’t be too busy come first week of April when the supposed launching of the Endowment Fund will hold. We are all watching them and the Old Students.
Ugochukwu can be followed on twitter @ugsylvester or reached through ug.ugovester@gmail.com
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