From Aloysius Attah, Onitsha
Chief Ifeanacho Paul Orajaka is a former Vice-chancellor, Anambra State University, Uli. He’s also a retired Professor of Geology at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. In this interview, he narrates his journey to attaining the highest pedestals in academics and university administration.
Going through your profile, can you take us back to your childhood days? How did those years shape your character and worldview?
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I was eight years old in 1956 when our father, Job Orajaka died. After his demise, two of our uncles, Mr Michael Orajaka and (Prof) Stephen Orajaka took care of us. We were six in our family – four boys and two girls.
I was a favoured child because I lived with Michael. I was his servant because I cooked for him. Even when I was in the university, whenever he was around (because he was a labourer with the Works Department of the then Eastern State, and he was moving around Nnewi and Okigwe), I cooked for him.
He and Stephen trained all of us from the elementary school to the university level. At elementary school, Michael was in charge, at the university, Prof paid our school fees.
But that didn’t mean that life was rosy for us. My mother, as a widow, was a very hardworking woman. She was trading in palm kernels. She would buy palm kernels with the shell, and when we cracked them, she would sell the kernel, and from there make money. I will say that my mother was in charge of provision for food. At a later stage, she started trading in cassava. She made “akpu”; she made moi moi. She was going from our place to far away Aguleri to buy cassava and bring them to sell in our locality. My immediate elder sister, Pauline was hardworking too. Pauline was helping our mother in selling all these things too.
So, while our uncles paid our school fees, our mother worked hard with us to provide food and other things. We fetched “ukpaka” after cracking palm kernels. So, our mother sold all these things to make provision for us. In all, I can say that I learnt the values of hard-work, determination, obedience and good conduct or character towards achieving success.
In the face of such personal loss of your dad at your little age, what inner strengths or external influences helped you to persevere through school and eventually university?
Our senior uncle, Michael was a disciplinarian. I told you that I lived with him. He insisted that we must study. He and his immediate younger brother, Professor Stephen paid our school fees. So, we had no reason not to study. We had no option because there was always a cane around. So, they were our external influences. Now, on our own part, in our elementary school, we had a group we were studying together with. We made sure we studied. In elementary school, we even studied up to 10 and 11 o’clock in the night. I attended my secondary school in BSC (Bishop Shanahan College), Orlu. I gained admission into the college in 1963. The first time I put on sandals was the day I entered secondary school. Going to Orlu wasn’t easy because at that time there were not many vehicles. The only vehicle at that time was “Austin lorry” which they fondly call ‘o ji azu eje’ because when you are travelling, you will have to seat backing the direction you are travelling to.
On the day you will travel to Orlu, you will have to come out to the junction in Akpo at 4 o’clock in the morning to join the lorry to Onitsha. It was a very slow moving lorry. So, you will get to Onitsha at about 8.30 am, and, then enter another lorry going to Ihiala and from Ihiala to Orlu. I was a savage when I got to BSC Orlu. After my uncle, Prof Stephen dropped me in the college, he never visited me in the school throughout my study.
I had problem with two subjects in my first year – geography and Latin. So my result was bad. My uncles scolded me so much that in my second year, I had to bend down to study because I knew that I couldn’t again come back and tell my uncles that I had bad results.
I was in “B class”. The brilliant students were in “A class”. But because I worked hard in my second year, after my second year, I got myself improved and I went to “A class”.
I was to take my standard 6 examination in 1967 when the civil war broke out. We joined the army and I served at the 28th Battalion, Nkpor.
When the war ended, I took school certificate examination in 1970. I don’t know if you heard about “Expo 70”? The examination for the whole of the South East (then made up of Imo and Anambra) leaked.
So, we took our WAEC examination again in June 1971. That same year, I took entrance examination into the University of Nigeria Nsukka and passed. I was admitted into the university in October 1971. I studied Geology, and, graduated in 1975.
In the university, we formed a study group called “Who Born Sleep Association”. We were four of us. We would gather at 7pm and read till 9pm, go for recreation just for 30 minutes and return at 9.30pm, and, read till 12 o’clock. That was our routine every day.
I attended two universities overseas. I attended the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I did my Masters degree for one-and-half years. I later gained admission to the University of El Paso in Texas where I obtained a doctorate degree in Geology.
I was the first black man to obtain a doctorate degree in Geology in that university. It was a white-dominated university. So, black Americans were very happy and proud seeing a black man obtain a PhD degree in that university. A popular newspaper called “ El-paso Times “ carried my doctorate degree as news with a headline titled “First Black Man to Obtain a PhD”.
Very important throughout these my academic periods was that personal determination and sacrifices I made saw me through in achieving the successes.
You became a vice-chancellor of a university, an incredible feat. At what point did you realise you were not just surviving, but thriving?
I didn’t just pick the vice-chancellorship position. I was appointed VC of Anambra State University, Uli because of my sterling academic records, and contributions to the development of the university. I was appointed VC in April 1, 2005.
First, I was Chairman of the Governing Council of Ekwenugo Okeke Polytechnic, Uli which coincidentally metamorphosed into the Anambra State University of Science and Technology.
When Anambra State was about to establish a university, I got to know about it through Chief Forte Dike. With that knowledge of the plan, when I went to represent the then vice-chancellor of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Prof Pita Ejiofo in a meeting of committees of VCs in Nigeria, I happened to sit beside the then Executive Secretary of the NUC, Prof Peter Okebukola. I used the opportunity to hint him about the plan to establish Anambra State University of Science and Technology, and asked him how we should apply. So, it was this my contacts and subsequent meetings that secured the approval for the establishment of the university. So, I earned my appointment as VC through hard work.
Part of the moment I knew I was thriving was that by the time I was leaving office as VC, I had secured full accreditation for all the programmes in the university – 29 of them from the NUC except Igbo Language and Architecture.
Can you tell us about your marriage and family? How did your personal life support or challenge your academic and leadership ambitions?
I held my wedding during a morning mass. I chose morning mass for my wedding to enable me take my wife along with me to the United States. It became a talk of the town that a university graduate did an uncelebrated morning mass wedding. It was a tough decision I had to take.
Also, it was a tough decision for me in the United States for me to do dish-washing job as a graduate to enable me maintain my wife and our two children.
There was my friend, a fellow Nigerian student who followed me to the dish-washing job, and, he told me after the first day “Please, I don’t want to do this nonsense”. And thereafter he quit. But I didn’t quit because I needed to do it to survive.
Although I was on a Federal Government of Nigeria scholarship programme, the money I was receiving wasn’t sufficient to sustain me and my family, including paying my wife’s university school fees, and the maintenance of our two children we had then.
When I was at the University of Tulsa, I really roughed it out doing demeaning job of dish-washing while my wife was a janitor – cleaning the hospital environment. This is because we also needed to pay for the day care of our children.
Our situation was so bad that we had to apply for a low-housing and food stamp.
I recall how I left hospital where I stayed with my wife who was under labour in the whole of the night and went to go and face an examination in Computer Science at 12noon. After the exam, I went straight to the hotel where I was doing dish-washing. I arrived at the hotel at 4pm that very day, closed work at 12am the following day, and ran back to the hospital to see the condition of my wife and our children.
I returned to Nigeria after four years, leaving my wife and children behind in America because my wife at the time had not completed her degree programme in Nursing. She, however, finished a year and half after I left US back to Nigeria and obtained her certificate.
So, I surmounted many obstacles to arrive at the height I have attained today. It didn’t come through the beds of roses.
For today’s youth, many of whom are growing up with limited resources or broken homes, what values were non-refundable for you in your journey to success?
Hard work, determination not to give up, obedience and good character are very critical values toward achieving success. I lost my father when I was in Infant 2 in school, and, I was just eight years old then. My dedication to my duties, obedience and passion for education are the reason for what I am today.
Looking back, what moments stand out as turning points, either of failure or triumph that defined the man you’ve become?
It was the time I didn’t do well in my first year in the secondary school at BSC. The scolding, advice and physical beating made me to realise what success means in life. It was after then that I realised what I ought to be and how to work for it.
You served in both scholarly and leadership capacities. What message do you have for young Nigerians about service, discipline, and building a life that truly matters?
Hard-work, obedience, determination and good conduct or character. These are critical values any young person must imbibe in his or her journey to attaining genuine progress.
The post I lost my dad at 8, wore my first sandals in secondary school – Prof Orajaka, ex VC, Anambra varsity appeared first on The Sun Nigeria.
