There was a federal government college

The cover story of the Vanguard on 10/3/25 was a sad one for me as somebody who attended Federal Government College 50 years ago. The title says it all: “How Unity Schools crashed from glory to dishonour.” The story listed a litany of woes like lack of basic facilities, war over PTA levies, and poor toilet facilities. As an aged native doctor (Soludo MUST not hear this), I went into my overused skin bag and discovered an article I wrote on the matter 12 years ago (25/6/13). It is another perspective on where the rain started beating the Federal Government Colleges. Vanguard focused on facilities and funding; I focused on processes and likely outcomes. Please, read on.

I attended Federal Government College Enugu for my HSC in 1975/77, and this was how I got my admission. About 5 forms were sent from the State Ministry of Education, and the principal of Awka Etiti High School distributed them to his best 5 students, and I was the only arts student. We had an entrance examination and an interview that lasted three days, which was held at the temporary site at Upper Chime Avenue, Enugu. Eventually, I gained admission. I did not know anybody, and my parents did not need to see any minister, governor or senator. I was the pioneer library prefect, and one of my deputies was Obioma Eziashi (now Mrs Imoke), who was then in the same class with Lyel. I did not say that they were up to anything then! The school had students from all parts of the country and from all social strata of society (children of professors, DGs, headmasters, petty traders, local farmers, corporate CEOs and distinguished professionals). There were many students from the north, but it was obvious that they were ‘government pikins.’ I had punished one boy for not putting on his sandals, and his only excuse was that his government had not sent money to repair the sandals. I reported the matter to the principal, and to my amazement, he asked me to leave the boy alone because the state had not actually sent his pocket money! I did not find it funny that while my parents provided EVERYTHING I needed, somebody waited for the state government to repair his sandals! Anyway, I had three A-level papers (literature, history and economics), won six prizes on the prize-giving day and was offered admission into 5 universities.

Many years later, my daughter took the common entrance, with Queens College Lagos as her choice. She passed, but that was where the problem started. We would go to the school on Monday and be asked to return on Tuesday; we would go in the morning and be asked to return in the evening until my daughter spent one whole term at home and there was no admission. Most frustrating was that nobody could tell me what the exact issue was! People were bandying notes from this and that VIP as well as some cash and were getting admitted! Anyway, I sent her to a wonderful school (Louisville Girls, Ijebu-Itele) where she already had admission and where the principal still took her in the second term because of her performance in the entrance examination/interview and my pledge to take her back if she did not meet the requirements academically.

Read also: Educational crises: There was a Federal Government College…

Meanwhile, a streetwise acquaintance had advised me to provide N40,000 for my daughter to be admitted at Shagamu as a northerner. I blatantly refused because I did not see how I could pass off my own daughter as somebody from the north just to gain an FGCC admission. As for my friend in question, all his children attended FGCs. And of course after that debacle, none of my children ever took FGC entrance exams again.

I recalled all this when I read Segun Adeniyi’s lamentations about the laughable and disturbing 2013 cut-off marks for our FGCs. (ThisDay, 13/6/13). Candidates from Anambra must score 139 for admission, and for Imo, Enugu, and Lagos, it was 138, 134, and 4, and 133. However, a boy from Yobe needed to score ONLY 2, and his sister, 27. For Zamfara, they need 4 and 2 marks.

Thus, hard work is punished while indolence is rewarded, and pupils from Anambra, for instance, are being punished for the efforts of their parents in encouraging them to go to school. Furthermore, boys from Yobe live in Anambra, Lagos or Abuja and attend the same school as Emeka or Kunle. So, how do you explain this one-Nigeria policy to the unlucky boy from Anambra, Imo or Lagos? Why won’t the states encourage their parents and children to take schooling seriously if they really want to go to school? I doubt if a person who scores 2 out of 200 can write his name, and so, will he be in the same class with the fellow who scored 139, taught by the same teachers, and write the same WAEC, NECO, and JAMB, or will there always be a cut-off? How can we develop as one nation with asinine policies like this?

In September 1975, I gained admission into FGCE purely on merit. When it got to the turn of my daughter, knowing somebody and paying some money have become key determinants. In 2013, those who scored 1% [2/200] are being admitted into the system. This evidences progressive retrogression in our educational system. How can one effectively teach the person who scored 2/200 [1%] and the person who scored 139/200 [70%] in the same class? And I ask: is it the same FGC that I attended that the fellow who scored 1 percent will attend? Indeed, there was a Federal Government College…!