By Obi Nwankanma
Last weekend in Dearborn, Michigan, old students of the Government College Umuahia – “Umuahians” – as they’re called, under the banner of the GCUOBA-USA, met at their annual convention at the Henry Autograph Collection Hotel in Dearborn. I had flown in an early morning flight from Orlando, Florida.

As a matter of fact, my wife, Mira, had driven me early through the last vestiges of Hurricane Hermine which had made its landfall the previous night, and swerved through Orlando, cutting across the Atlantic coast.

The sky still looked forbidden that morning, and Mira had said, “I hope you make it!” with the likelihood that weather-related events might force the cancellation of my morning flight to Michigan, all of three hours on the haul. I was of course resolved to be at the convention, hurricane or no hurricane. At the airport, my wife said, “Say “up Umuahia!” to the Umuahians from me.” That was her way of conveying her regrets for not attending this year’s meeting much as she’d have loved to.

The “Umuahian wives” – our lovely “young girls” are the real drivers of the passion and the commitment that have compelled us so far these last decade, since the first convening of the GCUOBA-USA in North America, to move and brace up to the challenge of restoring our great alma mater, the Government College Umuahia. And true enough, on arrival, and as soon as I settled myself to my surroundings in this quite elegant hotel, I called the formidable Okey Eneli, class of 1970, an Engineer, and Vice-President Engineering Services at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, who is the indefatigable chair of the Midwest Chapter of the GCUOBA, the hosts for this year’s convention.

Eneli is a force of nature. Built tautly, like a well-tuned cello, with no waste of muscle, Eneli not only radiates infectious energy, but he has what someone later pointed out as the sharp and organized mind of an engineer, with a really great eye for detail. As the local chair and chief host of this year’s convention, Eneli and his equally formidable wife, Dr. Ihuoma Eneli, MD, Paediatrician and Epidemiologist, and Professor of Clinical Paediatrics at the Ohio State University College of Medicine, moved operationally from Columbus, Ohio, to Detroit, Michigan, ahead of us all, to ensure a hitch free event, and things ran indeed like a well-oiled machine. He it was whom I called on arrival, and who told me that a few others had arrived ahead of me, among them, not surprisingly, Nnabueyi Chike Momah, our grand patron of the class of ’44, and his dear wife, our “youngest girl” Arunne Ethel Momah.

This inspiring octogenarian couple puts us all literally on the run, and we often play catch-up to no avail. Dr. Bato Amu of ‘65, President of the GCUOBA-USA board, had come in from Atlanta. Dr. Amu, an internist, and one of the founding spirits of the Association of Nigerian Physicians in North America, ANPA, is another truly remarkable Umuahian. I did note something he had in common with Christian Chike Momah: it is that Bato Amu – whom Umuahians love to call “Batman” ages backwards.

Perhaps because they were both formidable cricket batsmen in their time in Umuahia, Momah making it to the Nigerian national cricket II with the likes of Rex Akpofure, Christopher Okigbo, Caleb Olaniyan, Leslie Harriman, Afolabi Ogunlesi (then “George”), Ebenezer Ikomi, Wilfred Chukudebelu, and so on, and Amu, captaining the University of Nigeria’s cricket team in the early ‘70s.

The trauma surgeon, Dr. Sam Nwaobasi of the class of ’56 – school goalkeeper in 1962, captain of Hockey, and Captain of Cozens and his wife Margaret, had also come in early from St. Louis, Missouri. Onyema Nkele, a Computer Engineer, and his Attorney wife, Oma Nkele were also already there from Atlanta. So were Dr. Okechi Nwagbara and his wife Ijeoma, from Chicago, and my own classmate of the class of ’78, Dr. Kingsley Umezurike, a Pharmacist in Atlanta, who flew ahead of his wife, Stella, who came later that evening. And such is the commitment that drew Estelle Ngozi Oji who arrived ahead of her husband, Jideofo “Jay” Oji, President of Sphinx Development Corp and Principal of Oji Associates,

Real Estate developers and Valuers, who got too busy in his office, arrived late at the airport, and missed his last flight out to Detroit. But there we all were at the lobby that Friday evening, with Umuahians trickling in from the various nooks of the United States. And there was the Nigerian delegation – Dr. Eugene C. Ibe, ’55, former Director of Research at the NNPC and his wife, Prof. Mrs. Ibe of Uniport; Mr. Emeka Ifezulike,’70, Chartered Accountant, principal Ifezulike and Co, and currently Special Adviser to the Minister for trade, and Mr. Rumundaka Wonodi ’79, former Managing Director of the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Co, (NBET).

Soon, we were invited to the suites of Mr. Randy Nduka, ‘67 and his wife the Attorney Angie Nduka, for opening repast, where we began by disvirgining “Ifenii” – a fine bottle of the Baron Otard Extra 1795 Cognac – taken mostly neat, after a short invocation by Nnabueyi Momah – whom we reminded not to make his hand too generous in pouring out the Otard to the ancestors and our departed fellow Umuahians who have ascended, and have doubtlessly formed a branch of the GCUOBA in heaven. Ali Talib, did use the occasion to beseech Mr. Momah, to use his elderly reaches in Nigeria to intervene on his behalf before the Olu of the Itsekiri, to return his wife Seje, who had been summoned to the Itsekiri palace, and as result could not be present in this year’s convention.

It was of course all in good humor, and the small party in Randy Nduka’s “crib” presaged that evening’s reception by the oldboys of the Midwest chapter at the reception suite, where by now more Umuahians, having arrived had gathered. It was a lively evening with Dr. Jerome Nriagu, ‘55 PhD, DSc, Emeritus Professor of Environmental Chemistry at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Gab. Ugwu, ‘63 Director of the Africa Resource Center in Detroit, the Physiotherapist Dr. Ahinze C. Osuamadi, ’76, Dr. Martin Nwankwo ’62, Neonatologist at Saginaw, Michigan, Charles Moka, a Chemical Engineer from Chicago, Dr. Emeka Aniagolu, Professor of Politics at the Ohio Wesleyan University and his wife Marianne Ndiaye Aniagolu, the internist, Dr. Osita Okpaloka,’66, and his wife Chinwe, Director of Undergraduate recruitment & Diversity at Ohio State University; Dr. Casmir Okoro ‘67 from Atlanta; Innocent Egedigwe of Silverspring Maryland, Dr. Okezie Anaba Wachuku, ’72 of Michigan, Udobi and Ngozi Ikeji of Maryland, the Gastroenterologist, Dr. Emma Okafor ’65 of Beachwood, Ohio, Dr. Chinwendu Ike Mbanugo, ‘64 President of Atlantis Engineering LLC Dearborn and his wife Ruki, Bonny Olumba ‘76 and his wife Winnie from Atlanta, Dr. Chuck Ibeku and his wife Chika from New Jersey, of course, the President of the GCUOBA-USA, Dr. Godswill Okoji ’67 and his wife, Naya. Umuahians are not all about “swots” and “jobbing,” they party hard too, and it always goes right well into the morning. But we were still up, bright and early,

Saturday morning, and all through the day at the business meeting, interrupted only by a coffee break and lunch at a Japanese Restaurant. Here, various reports, the highlight of which were the reports of the new Board of Trustees under the Chairmanship of Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo, to which the administration and future development of the Government College Umuahia had been ceded by Emeka Ifezulike; the Project Committee of the Trust by Dr. Ibe, and the GCUOBA-USA finance and fundraising committee, by Mr. Onyema Nkele were presented. The upshot is what Mr. Randy Nduka declared as “the report we’ve all been waiting for,” which is that the Government College Umuahia finally has a chance to rise from the sloughs and ruins of neglect, thanks to the initiative that has endowed it to a new Trustees.

And this was the thrust of the dinner lecture by the guest lecturer that night, Dr. Ajovi Scott-Emuakpor, distinguished Professor of Medicine, who took us down the history of what made Umuahia tick, and the imperative of its rising like the phoenix. We also used the evening to honor a great and Umuahian – Dr. Kevin Uwazurike – who passed on the year, previous. Next year, it shall be in DC, and C.C. Momah already cannot wait.