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t the conclusion of primary school it was usual for most pupils to seek admission to secondary schools through the 'entrance exams. It was a feature of life at WTC Practising School Enugu that as each pupil gained admission to a secondary school his/her name would be announced at assembly to the cheers of everybody else. I took a few entrance exams including the one to DMGS Onitsha. I rode up to Onitsha sandwiched in the back seat of the limousine between Sir Louis and Lady Mbanefo who were going to Onitsha to spend the weekend. I was not however to be a Dengramite as in January 1965 I gained admission to Government Secondary School Owerre as a scholarship student. Even the prospect of being a 'Grammarian' at Lagos Anglican Boys Grammar School, my father's alma mater could not be compared to the advantage of going to GSSO. 'Ogssian Varsity' was one of the five government-sponsored secondary schools in Eastern Nigeria at the time. - the others being Government College Umuahia (founded in 1929) and Government Secondary School, Afikpo both of which like Owerre were all boys boarding schools; Queens School Enugu, the only all girls school and Comprehensive High School Port Harcourt, a mixed school.

When I went to Owerre, life was as pleasant as it could be for a boy away from home for the first time. Getting to and from Owerre was no straightforward matter. There was no commercial transport service between Enugu and Owerre as would now be the case. Owerre was only a provincial town. Mother had to hire a taxi, a black Morris Minor 1100 to take me back each term. On one occasion I travelled in the same cab with another pupil from a school in Orlu. She had to take her bed to school as her school did not provide. The taxi had to 'drop' her first and whilst I was helping unload her stuff in Orlu I was unfortunately cut by a piece of metal. I recall the promptitude with which she gave me first aid to stem the bleeding from the laceration on my ankle. This minor incident was illustrative of the kindness I received throughout my stay in the East and even when I returned for NYSC in August 1977.

At Owerre I was in Nnamdi Azikiwe House. I remember a school well resourced; we did not take our own beds or other furniture to school. We had facilities for athletics and cricket in the first term, from January to March when it was dry; then football in the second term. Hockey was played in the third term. Boxing was a minority sport. I must confess that whilst I enjoyed cricket I did not excel in any of the sports! Nevertheless the essence of schools like Owerre was to inculcate character and sport was an integral part of the process.

The notable sportsmen at Owerre were Edet 'Pele' Okuk, as good a medium pace right hand bowler at cricket as he was a centre forward at football; Egwuawu 'the emperor' who was the school football goalkeeper and the goalkeeper at hockey; '007' Nwokeabia who was at outside left in the school first eleven football team, but who could forget Oluwole Timehin who as hockey right back was impossible to go past earning him the nick name 'Oluwole ikporapo' The school did reasonably well at cricket where Afikpo was perhaps the strongest, but a lot better at football. At hockey however we were to excel sharing the Mbanugo Cup with Afikpo in 1966. Ogssian Varsity will always be remembered for having won the Eastern Nigeria Secondary Schools football competition (Phensic Cup) in 1960, well before my time.

Discipline was taken as given and John Garrod the expatriate Principal did not see a need to be overbearing. John Garrod soon retired to his home country and in came SB Ogujawa as Acting Principal. Later he would be replaced by Mr SF Kombo Igbeta. Charles Egegbara, the cricket playing School Captain expected his prefects to keep discipline. Everybody was a mini-gentleman. But the occasional 'bad boy' is a part of every school and as they say 'boys must be boys'. It was the coming of Mr Orji as Vice Principal that raised the tempo of discipline. Not that the standard of discipline was bad but Orji with his sky blue Volkswagen Beetle and pair of glasses perched in the tip of his nose was proactive in his approach to discipline. He knew boys but the boys did not necessarily know Orji well. So Orji was always first out for PE on a chilly harmattan morning not for his love of physical exercise but Orji knew to lie in wait for the boys who would be late for PE. However the boys had one redeeming grace. We always knew of Orji's approach because his car with an exhaust that needed fixing sounded like a World war II bomber and always alerted us to his imminent arrival. Orji was a persistent influence - at lights out he was there and it was no effort for Orji to visit New House, Pyke-Knott House, take in Owerre House and School House and yet take a look into Nnamdi Azikiwe and Erekosima Houses all in one night! Apart from Orji the other tutor most feared was Mr Ukut, the Maths teacher transferred from Comprehensive High School, Port Harcourt. Other tutors like Mr and Mrs Utroska, American Peace Corps teachers, Mr Savanathan who taught Physics all took the view that by and large boys must be boys, but discipline was not burdensome or overbearing.

Amidst all the sport and cultural activities including the senior and junior literary and debating societies and the occasional visits from girls at Owerre Girls Secondary School or to girls at Egbu Girls Secondary School, the purpose was to learn your books and gain your School Cert! The curriculum was cast in the image of the colonial education system with high standards all-round. Latin, taught by the austere Pius Ezeokeke was on the curriculum side by side with French with emphasis on maths and written and spoken English. No one was allowed to speak vernacular, meaning Igbo mainly but every other Nigerian language was prohibited. At table you were expected to display 'good table manners' and so on. I was happy at Owerre as I had been at Enugu. I made friends and nobody took any blind bit of notice of class, nor ethnicity.

In December 1965 my younger sister and brothers and I took a holiday to Lagos travelling the long way round by train to Lagos via Kaduna. We were in Lagos on January 15 when the coup took place. We travelled back same way in January 1966 and arrived to the lull of Enugu. Soon I would return for form two and my younger sister would gain admission to Queen's School Enugu. She was not as fortunate as me to gain a school scholarship but the Eastern Nigeria Ministry of Education decided that any pupil of Eastern Nigeria origin gaining 'distinction' in the First School Leaving Certificate examination would get a scholarship worth £50 per annum. As the school fees then were £60 per annum in those government secondary schools it was a princely sum. But as a 'non'-Easterner my sister would not qualify; not until the brand new Military Governor of Eastern Nigeria, the then Lieutenant Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu made a counter announcement next day saying that all pupils of Eastern Nigeria origin gaining a distinction would indeed receive their scholarships, but in addition all those of non Eastern Nigeria origin resident and schooling in Eastern Nigeria would receive the same scholarships.

Was the coming of the military an advent of the messiahs or would it turn out to be the gathering of the storm clouds?

The military coup of January 15 was a sobering experience for all Nigerians and even today remains shrouded in controversy. The pattern of executions created the impression of an Igbo-sponsored coup, which was used to justify the pogrom against Ndigbo in the north of Nigeria but later in July 1966 in Abeokuta and Lagos as well. The history and the details of the coup are too well rehearsed to require recap here except to say that in the second term holidays one could see the widows of Igbo army officers in Enugu where they sheltered with their relations. It was a harrowing time and mother joined the relief effort at Enugu railway station to welcome the survivors from northern Nigeria. I recounted in the earlier article that politics at that time took place amongst the 'big guns'. Those of us the ordinary Nigerians related more or less without political overtones. The coups of 1966 and the repercussions changed all that and from thence Nigeria was not to remain a spiritual whole. The current tensions in the country and the dysfunctionality in the body politic can be pinpointed to have arisen in 1966. For the first time ordinary people were shocked to see themselves under physical threat and even death from erstwhile friends, neighbours and business associates.

Early in December 1966 my new Principal at GSSO, Mr (later Chief) SF Kombo-Igbeta would visit Enugu to consult with Ministry of Education officials. He was asked by mum to bring me down to Enugu. I suppose it was the anxiety of a mother; but I returned to Owerre later with Mr Kombo-Igbeta but that was to be my last term at GSSO. It was simply to 'pack and go'. Nobody harassed anybody but the storm clouds were visible and to avoid any actions out of character of Ndigbo the Military Governor advised non-Easterners to leave.

I left with my family and all our moveable possessions in a truck (gwongworo to Ndigbo or aganabo to the Yoruba) on December 15 1966 and arrived Lagos the following night. We left Enugu confident that it would blow over quickly, we would soon be back. My younger sister did return in January 1967 because she could not find a secondary school in Lagos but I was fortunate to join the 1967 (form III) set at Government College Ibadan. It was to be 10 years later in December 1976 before I would revisit the East. In the intervening period the war had been fought and a certain normality had returned but the scars of that period would re-order the psyche of the Nigerian nation and people.

In order to understand the ongoing crises in Anambra State one must give consideration to the events of 1966. In his article CHRIS UBA & THE FALL OF IGBO CIVILIZATION (www.Nigeriaworld.com, 28 July 2003) Rudolf Okonkwo correctly identifies that in the East as we knew it then, some of the political actors of Anambra today could not feature even as hired helps or verandah boys! The truncation of the established order has resulted in the imposition of nonentities into national reckoning. As a result we have the current morass:

• The culture of impunity - the coups of January and July 1966 were not addressed. Nobody was ever punished nor even called to book. Instead the principal actors went on to benefit hugely from their actions particularly those of the July coup;

• The abandonment of merit and the established order - one of the key elements of Ojukwu's argument with Gowon was that Lt Col (later General) Gowon should hand over to Brigadier Ogundipe. Brigadier Ogundipe, bohemian, moustachioed establishment officer was senior to Yakubu Gowon as was Colonel Adeyinka Adebayo. Both Yoruba officers were brushed aside at the insistence of the Hausa-Fulani military led by Yakubu Gowon and the late MR Muhammed who insisted that that they (northern officers) must rule. In this insistence they were aided and supported by the British High Commissioner in Lagos, Sir Francis Cumming-Bruce with the active connivance of the American Ambassador, Elbert Matthews; this second issue led to the third feature that has undermined the faith of Nigerians in obtaining things or positions through established channels. That the Yakubu Gowon government was a creation of the Anglo-American conspiracy led to the next issue undermining Nigeria today and that is:

• The overbearing interference of foreign powers - Nigeria is unable to set its own course today partly because it owes excessive sums of money to international institutions. No domestic agenda could be set to day because the vested foreign interests and their ability to dictate and manipulate the local agenda has become such a feature of our body politic. In the government of Alhaji (Sir) Abubakar Balewa, the then British High Commissioner Stannard attended Federal Executive Council meetings of a new 'sovereign' Nigerian government! So that when Ojukwu in his Ahiara Declaration speech mocked the idea of Nigeria by saying that 'even her Prime Minister was a Knight of the British Empire' people ought to understand that Nigeria then and now has always been at best a stooge of foreign principals and worst a pawn in their designs. In Gowon's time there was no such overt influence but everybody understood that the instrumentality of the British was essential to his accession to the throne of leadership. But the events of 1966 also meant that nobody could have confidence in the Federal Government. In 1966, Ndigbo saw themselves as lamb to the slaughter in northern Nigeria. No doubt the northerners saw the Federal Government of Aguiyi Ironsi as an Igbo government unable to prosecute those who murdered their leaders. The Yoruba under Asiwaju Obafemi Awolowo understood a slap in the face in seeing two of their senior officers by-passed by the northern officer corps due to raw muscle and weight of numbers. The Yoruba moreover wanted the large contingent of Hausa-Fulani troops in Yorubaland to be removed but Yakubu Gowon refused. To the Yoruba these were not Nigerian soldiers but northern troops, an army of occupation. This created a lack of faith in the centre to be fair to every Nigerian. Since merit was no longer the basis of advancement everybody retreated to ethnic enclaves and this reinforced the next feature that contributed to Nigerian dysfunctionality:

• The structural imbalance of Nigeria coupled with 'tribalism'- before January 1966 everybody including the uninitiated understood 'federalism'. Ironsi abolished the federal structure and everybody was unhappy, with some seeing it as a plot to enable Ndigbo dominate not only the federal civil service but also the civil services of the other regions. Someone explained to me that if there were a vacancy for a fairly junior civil service position in Kaduna Ironsi's reforms meant that the Federal Public Service Commission in Lagos would fill that post since it would now be one civil service for all of Nigeria! As the head of the Federal Civil Service was FCO Nwokedi it was easy to 'confirm' in the public mind that there was a plan by Ndigbo to dominate others. This abolition of federalism was given as the reason for Ironsi's murder on July 29 1966. Prior history did not help matters. The Vice Chancellor' s position at the new University of Lagos had been filled in a most acrimonious manner with the Yoruba ministers in the Federal Government (Chiefs TOS Benson, RA Akinjide and Ayo Rosiji to name but a few) insisting that a Yoruba must now fill this position and that the incumbent, Eni Njoku not have his contract renewed. The Yoruba had seen Oladele Ajose by-passed by Kenneth Dike in filling the position at Ibadan and were now determined not to repeat the situation at Lagos. The resulting acrimony led Ted Kayode Adams a law student to stab or attempt to stab the newly appointed VC, Professor Saburi Biobaku. Moreover the Yoruba saw a situation in which Johnson McTaggart the American Vice Chancellor would retire from Nsukka to be replaced no doubt by an Igbo; so that at Ibadan, Lagos and Nsukka there would be all Igbo Vice Chancellors. Oladele Ajose had by now been appointed to the position at Ife. There were rumours that in 1966, Professor JC Edozien the brilliant biochemist, and chemical pathologist then at UI, an Igbo was to be appointed to the position of VC at ABU Zaria upon the retirement of the New Zealand-born physicist, Norman Alexander. In the end Eni Njoku went to Nsukka, Biobaku was appointed to Lagos, Ted Kayode Adams was arraigned, pleaded mental incompetence and was confined to Yaba Mental Home. Ishaya Audu an associate professor of paediatrics at The College of Medicine of the University of Lagos was appointed by Yakubu Gowon as the new VC at ABU in 1966. Everything seemed to settle down to some sort of normality but Ted Kayode Adams would not recover. The University of Lagos Senate met under the chairmanship of Professor Horatio Oritshejolomi Thomas, Provost of the College of Medicine and agreed to rusticate him from the University. Later he would be released from Yaba Mental Home but he never recovered. Many years later he would commit suicide. He would not be the only victim of the new dysfunctional system that Nigeria was cultivating. By late 1966, the subtle, subterranean rumours and innuendoes as well as whispers reinforced and fed the storm clouds so that 1966 was a year pregnant with sufficient multifactorial tension that would break out in a deluge to engulf Nigeria; and from which Nigeria has yet to recover even today. The imbalance between the regions and the centre, which started then, is now institutionalised with revenue allocation previously based on derivation now based on 'population' even though the accurate census of Nigerians does not exist. In the absence of this balance between the centripetal and the centrifugal forces, the federal government has become a place for the disbursement of monies collected from the foreign oil companies. Since the belief in a corporate Nigeria has been undermined and eroded and people no longer have confidence in the idea of Nigeria, most federal officials are there simply to obtain 'their own quota' from the federal cake. This has led to the next dysfunctionality of Nigeria:

• Corruption - the combination of the certainty that there is impunity (see earlier) and the belief that everybody for himself (see the weakness in dealing with the coup-makers of 1966) coupled with the fear of being 'cheated' by others means that most (not all) federal officials are corrupt. To put it more accurately "not that federal government officials are corrupt but that corruption is official". Every body from the gatekeeper to the director-general has seen someone 'make it big' on over-invoicing of government contracts and not do the job and collect the money and get away with it. The institutionalisation of the culture of impunity means that everybody is at it. Furthermore it now so difficult to discipline any erring official because 'his/her people' will call it victimisation of their son or daughter and his/her removal means that 'their' people do not have enough people at that level in that ministry or department; in other words their people are marginalised! Corruption reinforces 'tribalism' as well as nepotism, which in turn mean that merit cannot be a consideration in public service appointments. It is not difficult to understand how these multiple pathologies have welded themselves into a malignant blight with each one reinforcing and exacerbating the other. So the critics of President Obasanjo need to consider the remote causes of our current morass and put these into perspective. I am all for criticism but without an adequate and thoroughgoing analysis of the past the present may be more difficult to understand.

EPILOGUE - In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes (Judges 17:6).