The echoes of the East Central State government’s forceful and unjust takeover of private and mission schools in 1970 in what is today’s Anambra State is still reverberating. And the victims of that government’s injudicious and unkind deed are still agonizing over the wrong which was perpetrated against them. Fifty four years after they were wickedly dispossessed of their schools, no sorts of compensations were paid to the private schools’ proprietors; neither were their schools returned to them.
After the end of the Nigeria-Biafra civil war in 1970, our leaders, then, felt that the task of rebuilding the destroyed infrastructure(s) as well as managing them had devolved on the government. And, in 1974, that is, four years after the Ukpabi Asika’s government had seized private and mission schools in what is today’s Anambra State, it unveiled guidelines for the management of the schools, as part of measures to assuage the hurt feelings of private school proprietors and right the wrong of the past.
Among the guidelines for the administration of those schools was the celebration of the birthdays of private schools’ founders. And schools’ founders whose houses were located on the schools’ premises should be permitted to live in those houses. More so, children of people who were dispossessed of their schools should be given scholarships that would take care of their primary and post-primary education in government-owned schools.
Another guideline listed for the administration of those schools was that private school proprietors should be made the chairmen of boards of governors of the seized schools. And interim awards and compensations should be given to them.
But sadly, the coup d’état that toppled the Yakubu Gowon military administration put paid to the implementation of those guidelines for the administration of those seized schools. So, not unexpectedly, the unveiled guidelines for the administration of the seized private and mission schools, which would have righted the wrong of 1970, were jettisoned.
Peter Obi, as governor of Anambra State, returned the seized mission schools in the state to their original owners, that is, the churches while bypassing seized private schools. That historic handover of 1044 primary and post-primary schools to churches took place in 2011, 41 years after they were seized by the government of Ukpabi Asika, the administrator of East Central State Government, then.
However, there is an inherent injustice in the return of schools: the seized private schools were not returned to their founders and proprietors. And no compensations were paid to them. But why were the private school proprietors treated differently from caretakers or owners of mission schools? This question blows in the air. But what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
The wrongs and injustices perpetrated against the Anambra-born private schools’ proprietors in 1970 and 2011 are yearning for redress. Those school founders who were either top politicians or businessmen salted away money, over the years, which they used to build schools only for the government to seize those schools.
Peter Obi’s bypassing of private schools’ proprietors when he returned seized schools to churches was an unjust and biased deed that could have caused social disharmony in Anambra State but for the restraint shown by the proprietors and founders of the seized schools.
Governments exist everywhere to protect people’s lives and properties, create job opportunities for the citizens, provide social amenities for the people, and safeguard their fundamental human rights.
The fundamental human rights of the people have been trampled upon as their schools had been taken away from them without any compensation paid to them. Government should do the right thing by returning the seized private schools to their original and rightful owners and paying them commensurate compensation, to boot.
•Edwin Nnamdi Ozonma,
Onitsha, Anambra State.
