My Personal Interaction With Peter Obi And Why I Support His Candidacy -By Gene Nonso Mojekwu

My new primary school was a far cry from the then swanky All Saints Primary School, Onitsha where my elementary education started. The roof was flimsy, and the school desks were rickety. I don’t know whose “brilliant” idea it was, but we (the primary school children) were instructed to seek shelter by crawling under the rickety desks each time Nigerian Air Force fighter jets decided to conduct a largely unchallenged air raid, never mind that we had a better chance of survival in an open field than facing the prospect of a bombed flimsy roof collapsing on top of flimsy desks. I just painted a partial picture of Emmanuel Church primary school in my village in Akamili, Umudim, Nnewi to where I transferred when the city of Onitsha fell to the Nigerian side soon after the onset of the Nigeria-Biafra civil war. But don’t feel sorry for me; Emmanuel Church primary school shaped me, and gave me the foundation into which I anchored everything I did academically until my final day in graduate school. Decades later, I still remember the hibiscus flower and other educational information that was drawn and written on black-painted portions of the building walls that served as blackboards. I also remember our blue notebooks that had multiplication tables and other information on the back cover that we memorized. Nothing deterred our teachers from teaching us, and nothing deterred us from learning: not the condition of the school; not the intermittent boom of explosions at the Onitsha war front; not the far away crackling of automatic rifles that we learned to mimic; and certainly not the frequent air raids. Yes, we were undeterred, but war-induced trauma was real. War is not as sanitized as it appears in movies…if you ever experience one, you will never clamour for another, but I digress.

That elementary school was special to me, so much so that many years after I graduated from it, I made it a point to go hang out with the school children every time I visited from the United States. During one such visit in 2006, my eyes saw a little too much. The roof, which had not been replaced since construction of the decades old building, was on its last leg, the walls were unstable, the floor was crumbly, and the desks were still rickety, yet the children were motivated to learn. That was when I made the most daring instant decision in my entire life: demolish the old building and construct a new one; the old building was in too poor a condition to be renovated. Knowing that taking time to evaluate things may result in inaction, I committed myself by telling the headmistress to find temporary locations to teach the children until the old building was razed and a new one erected in its place. Her initial tears of joy gave me even more motivation. The hardest part for me was walking back home not knowing how the news would be received. The three people I thought might question my sanity not only approved, but did so enthusiastically: my ex-wife immediately put into motion the lifestyle changes we had to make to accommodate the project; my mother immediately volunteered to be the construction site superintendent, and she did a great job at it, procuring construction materials, and standing in the sun from foundation excavation until the last stroke of the paint brush; my father threw his weight behind the project simply by his reaction when I told him. He was a man’s man, tough as nails, and lived in strict accordance with his nickname, loosely translated as “a man should never cry in the middle of the night.” But soon after I told him, he placed his hand on my shoulder, looked at me, said nothing, turned and walked away. I’m certain he shed some tears that he didn’t want me to see.

My father didn’t live to see the completed building. He was murdered by armed robbers in 2007, and the building was completed in 2008. Because of what happened to him, I wanted a quiet handover to Anambra State, but a friend thought it would be a good idea for the then governor (Peter Obi) to attend. I told him I was not in the mood for going through the process of inviting swollen-head Governors to an event, and we left it at that. My friend must have made a phone call because on the morning of the event, a man and a lady showed up at my village house and told me the governor had canceled other scheduled engagements and was on his way to the event. That was how I first met Peter Obi, and how I was introduced to the importance he places on education.

What I found amazing was that he arrived with no fanfare: no sirens, no long convoy, no protocol, no intimidating police escort (save a few trench coat wearing secret service agents). We were already in the field about to start when he showed up in an SUV, seated in the front with his driver. We lined up to greet him, but after opening the door himself and alighting from the vehicle, he politely told us to give him a few minutes to first greet the school children who were lined up in front of the new building. It was only after hobnobbing with the school children that he greeted everyone else. Soon after that, he latched on to my young children as if the rest of us (including other dignitaries) were inconsequential. Feeding off his body language which showed a sincere love for children, I made a last minute decision to have my children ceremoniously hand the building keys over to him. After the short ceremony, we went back to my house for lunch, and he had no qualms eating and interacting with all who were present. He left after a short stay, but, although he was already 10 or more minutes into his trip back to Awka, he asked his driver to turn around and return to my house when Bishop (now Archbishop) Chukwuma called to tell him that he was late arriving to my house from Enugu. Put simply, Peter Obi is humility personified.

He made no promises during his speech at the ceremony (a note to Rev. Fr. Mbaka), but soon after the event the State sent a generator, computers and other supplies to the school.

Peter and I have met many times subsequent to the above, and he is everything people say he is. He is an honest, knowledgeable, and humble human being with no elitist bone in his body. He is a good manger of public resources. Most importantly for me, he cares about the welfare of children (the primary subset of the population whose consideration is paramount for successfully building or repairing a nation). For these and more reasons, I am certain he will make a great President for a country like ours that’s still searching for a sustainable way forward. He may not magically transform the country, but he will put in place institutions that will outlive him and set us on a path to greatness. Win or lose, Peter Obi has already impacted how we view public servants, and he has given audacity to future honest aspiring public servants who wish to present themselves for service, with or without deep pockets. He has my support, and I hope he has yours as well. Judge Peter Obi’s record, but no need to judge his soul….it is intact.