On Boxing Day – Friday, December 26 – Amano Obohia community, Ahiazu-Mbaise LGA, Imo State, will be bursting at the seams with people as sons and daughters, together with their friends and well-wishers, converge on the premises of the Secondary Technical School Obohia to launch a N500 million Trust Fund. The date is significant in two ways. Boxing Day, also known as Offering Day, is a day to donate gifts to those in need. Amano is in need of funds to execute much-needed developmental projects. What is more, December 26 is also Amano Day.

The project is unprecedented. Never in the history of the bucolic community has such an initiative been undertaking, hence the palpable excitement. Those in the diaspora who have been looking for an opportunity to give back to the community of their birth are even more excited, knowing, as Helen Keller noted: “Alone, we can do so little; together, we can do so much.”   The concept of community development is one that has concentrated minds for eons. Even as societies become more cosmopolitan and diverse, people still find strength in collective action, service and shared purpose, knowing that “the greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members,” as Coretta Scott King once enthused. This journey which started in May 2025, is the brainchild of the HRM Eze Chidume Okoro, Ugo Amano, who, worried by the escalating issues of insecurity and low-quality education in his kingdom, beseeched some sons of the community to find a sustainable, practical solution to the malaise. A month earlier, the apex Mbaise socio-cultural organization, Ezuruezu Mbaise had urged every community to take full responsibility of its security.

This informed the setting up of a 10-man Amano Strategic Committee on Security and Education that included Emeka Okoro, John Onuoha, Bartho Ogbonna, Austin Iwuchukwu, Anayo Acholonu, Chinedu Nwagbara, Cyril Okoroigwe, Laserian Ogbonna, Casmir Onyekwere, and myself as the chairman. We were armed with a four-point reference term: to articulate the views of Amano indigenes on a strong and proactive defence policy in the face of the prevailing security challenges in the country; design a template for the sustainable funding of the policy; design a sustainable funding policy of rehabilitating the decaying infrastructure in Obohia Secondary Technical School; and construct an educational policy for Amano Kingdom where every child will have a right to compulsory quality education at least up to secondary school and where parents are held accountable for out of school children.

Since the Committee was inaugurated on May 25, members worked assiduously, meeting every Sunday for at least three hours to find solution to the myriad problems facing Amano. I have been privileged to serve in some government committees but none has given me as much fulfilment as being chairman of the Amano Strategic Committee on Security and Education. It has been an enlightening voyage of discovery. Most fascinating is the dedication of my colleagues. None of us lives in the village. Some live abroad, hence the virtual meetings. All the committee members are professionals making their marks in all fields of human endeavours in Nigeria and globally. Whenever we meet, I am awed by the quality of contributions and how easily they construct and deconstruct scenarios. Their selflessness and dedication to the cause is rejuvenating. These are people driven by righteous anger at the neglect of their ancestral home by governments at all levels. It has been a seven-month learning curve for me.

Amano community has no government presence. Every infrastructure – electricity, water, schools, etc. – is by communal effort. That was how the community got its only secondary school when seven years after the civil war, Obohia came alive, rediscovering its soul, literally, with education as the tonic. What used to be Eastern Nigeria had been devastated by the 30-month war. But the people were not broken. Out of the ruins sprang up community secondary schools. Secondary Technical School Obohia (SETESCO) was one of them. Till date, it remains a study in communal effort.

Established in 1977, the government only gave the approval, without any financial support. But the people were happy that they got government’s permission to build a school. Had the money come with the approval, they would have been happier for it. But the fact that it didn’t was not going to be an obstacle to the realisation of their dream. They gave the project their all – donated hectares of land, devoted time and were selfless with their financial resources. Those who had no money offered their talents; bricklayers, carpenters, other artisans. There was no compulsion. It was voluntarism at its best. The women cooked food for their husbands who worked tirelessly on the project. The trees on the land were big and needed to be uprooted. There were neither caterpillars nor bulldozers. The work was done manually. It was sheer hard labour. But the people were determined to have a school and no sacrifice was considered too much. And about a year after the approval was granted, there was, indeed, a school. By the time the first set of students arrived in September 1977, some buildings had sprung up. It was in this school that I gained admission for my secondary education in 1978. Some members of the Amano Strategic Committee on Security and Education also had their secondary education there as the school became the primary agent of human capital development.

But just like the story of Nigeria, sadly, as it nears its golden jubilee, the school has become seedy. Most of the students, even those in senior classes can hardly read and write. Though the old students, indigenes of the community living in the U.S. and some public-spirited families have intervened by rehabilitating some of the dilapidated buildings, there is neither a functional library nor science laboratory. Before the pockets of intervention, the buildings had become so dilapidated that one wondered how any kind of teaching and learning could go on in such a squalid environment. Worse still, there is acute dearth of science teachers. In his patriotic zeal, Eze Chidume Okoro took it upon himself since April 2024 to hire some teachers for the school. But that is unsustainable. And that is exactly the idea behind the N500 million trust fund. The few infrastructure in the school need to be secured by completing the perimeter fencing of the college, installation of solar lightening system and deployment of security men. More teachers, particularly STEM teachers need to be employed and adequately remunerated.

The perimeter fencing and deployment of security personnel will ensure that thieves don’t easily come into the school to steal some of the available facilities, which is presently the case. That also underscores the importance of security in the entire project. Without education and security, there can be development. Both are fundamental prerequisites for sustainable progress. Security is an essential enabler of development. The United Nations emphasises that there can be “no sustainable development without peace.” When people feel safe, they participate robustly in education, invest in businesses, and contribute to their communities. In the same vein, education is a primary driver of progress. Without access to quality education, individuals and communities are at risk of falling into a poverty trap, which in turn contributes to social unrest and insecurity.

In a country where governments hardly care about what happens in the rural communities, the people owe themselves the obligation of lifting themselves by their own bootstraps. The N500 million trust fund will be used to address the security and educational problems facing the Amano Obohia community on a sustainable basis. The funds will be managed by a Board of Trustees, and the board is already being registered at the Corporate Affairs Commission. This is an idea whose time has come. And in the words of Victor Hugo, the French human rights activist and politician, “No force on earth can stop an idea whose time has come.” That explains the excitement in the air.