Government College Umuahia was founded by an Irish Priest, the Reverend Robert Fisher in 1929. Though it goes by the name of the sleepy Ibo township most famous for the Ojukwu bunker and her most revered son of the soil General Ironside Ironsi - (arguably Nigeria's best soldier ever); it actually lies far away from the town tucked in-between one of the larger Catholic Seminary's east of the River Niger and the sprawling complex that was once the state of the art and internationally acclaimed School of Agricultural Sciences (AGRIC)on the Calabar road. Having established that it is thus located in the village of Umudike and not Umuahia, it sits as a magnificent rape of color and as the end result of crafty engineering on a huge chunk of land featuring one of Nigeria's richest basins and diverse vegetation. Rolling slopes, bush thick as a sailors beard, veldt like lawns encased by stubborn red clay mounds which turned mushy in the rain and last but not least... the ever so present sharp Elephant grass. We had it all ! Believe me when I say this because as part of many a punishment gang, I fought this ever-growing and suffocating encroachment with both cutlass, machete, spade and hoe and therefore had the opportunity to take a very up close and personal involvement with nature first hand !

Even though I am of sound conviction that the school must have been created after blue prints of one of those snooty British prep schools and one of Her Majesty's prisons were blown together by an errant gust of wind....creating the strangest of assignments for the architects to follow, the resulting institution without doubt, was then if not now, one of Nigeria's top ten high schools in terms of the educational quality it offered to her diverse student body, as well as its accomplishments on paper. I say this not just because it did briefly serve once as a Prison for German Afrika Korps troops but it also churned out among others such old boys as Chinua Achebe, WAEC's Vincent Ike, Chief Erekosima , Saro Wiwa (RIP) and even this humble writer's own father Dr.Ezekwe Ojinmah the Ebubedike of Nkwerre.

Now back to having it all... let me rephrase that " We almost did". If there was one inherent flaw with our heaven on earth -- it was the fact that this whole metropolis in the bush was dependent on one trickle of a stream when her complicated plumbing system failed to work. And that If I remember right seemed to be the case a lot more than when it did. To add insult to injury even that precious resource was often shared with the general population of the area including the exotic Argentinean cows from AGRIC next door. Oh, if I could just reclaim or get paid for the countless hours spent fetching water for the kitchen, for your seniors, for the Masters, for the toilets and for yourself I would be a rich man today ! Hate it as I did it taught not just humility and how to economize, but also provided an outlet to raid the Federal Mango, Apple and Cashew plantations. Nevertheless, till today I am amazed that the top of my head is not flat and still has the ability to retain curls !

Anyway, with one of the soundest affirmative action plans in place entrance into GCU was not limited to the best in Ibo land only. On the contrary seats were also secured each academic year for the smorgasbord of Northerners, South Africans on FGN scholarships, Indians and even one local "Umudike[ian]" as compensation for donating their land almost free to the English during initial construction. All of us rich and poor, Christians and Muslim, "Ajebutter and Blue Band" ,tall and short were randomly arranged into a phalanx of houses named after either famous lecturers like Simpson,Wareham, Chief Erekosima and Fischer ( of course), or after the great rivers Niger and Nile and molded into "Umuahians" under one motto --- " In Unum Luceant" meaning " May we shine as one". It was a great environment to "blow up" as you rap fans would say, and like inquisitive grasshoppers who verge out from the constraint of the mother nest for the first time , we poked our noses into everything under the sun as we haggled over the great issues of life and simply grew mentally as well as physically. We made friends, and made enemies, but most of all we bonded as things like house spirit and school spirit turned us from mice to men and from individual into group. Unlike the Ivy league schools of the eastern USA whose gloomy buildings and halls were intentionally left drab and unfriendly to focus solely on study, the mish-mash of buildings that made up the campus were exactly the opposite and were garnished with almost every eye catching flower or creeper known to man. "Flame-of- the- forest" in red yellow or purple, Hibiscus and Jacaranda lined not just the Master's Quarters but the entire school, making it look like a cross between a giant quilt consisting of every shade, hue and tone known to man and New Orleans dressed for Mardi Gras. The end result was our Mount Olympus and if you ask all who frolicked in the rain or sun then, the greens just seemed greener........ and the blues bluer. Everybody knew we were the chosen few out of the many who came calling, and we basked in the glory of arguably the best times of our lives.

If the exterior of the school spelled color and versatility then its code of conduct was the exact opposite and came in one stoic color--- deep black. I mean it had to have been taken either straight from the Cadet Manual at Sand Hurst or the Code of Prisoners Conduct from the French Penal Colony in New Guyana. You know the infamous one that Steve McQueen introduced us to as Papillion ? I tell you all, from the waking bell at 5.45 am to "lights out" at 21.00 hours we felt like anything but Butterflies as we were pushed, tested and confronted with so many school laws and traditions that you often felt like a vegetarian in a slaughter house. The fact that some of these laws and expectations were borderline absurd, only added to the frustration on our part. I mean why be forced to trot everywhere you went including in one spot when talking to your seniors ? Or why was the average time allowed to consume your food less than 10 minutes ?

In as much as the food should really have been scraped right from plate to trash we were all made to believe that it was better than what was being served at the other schools who did not have ties, blazers or 4 different sets of uniforms including 1 just to cut grass in ! Therefore we fought, quarreled and devoured our gruel with the help of the Geishas, Sardines, assorted Yeasts, Cod Liver Oil and Maggi solutions. A yam and bean porridge that sometimes contained weevils for extra protein, a soup as thin and runny as yesterdays dishwater, jollof rice that had as many stones and boulders as Jos has hills -- not to talk about moldy loaves that bakers would get executed for in Europe, if they passed it out as bread. Like I said...we had it all ! Add lice, bedbugs, over crowding, the over demand for everything ,the under supply of everything and you have the conditions in which we all flourished as scholars.....and athletes.

All work and no play makes not just Jack a dull boy but Uche as well so boy, did our instructors make sure we played. I mean even the traditional unit of punishment in GCU was called a "run". You could get 2 for being late, 1 for not tucking in your shirt, or 3 for being smart with a senior which BTW included a term called "eyeing" or raising your eyebrows to an unacceptable level. At 5 a week you were on immediate detention and were instantly booked for a close encounter with "la bush" that weekend armed with your choice of weapon. So while your peers went into town to the only Cinema, raid the AGRIC farm for the fruit of the month or hosted the ladies at the local YCS bash that evening.......you bonded with nature and found out first hand who stung harder... wasps, bees or soldier ants. Humility 101 was a bitch make no bones about it !

Anyway to complete a run you started either in front of the dinning hall or from the school square and had to run around the campus, through the Masters Quarters, past the cricket lawns, up the school farm, past the tennis courts and the upper and lower soccer fields, then up behind the labs back to where you started.. and all under 10 minutes. You could do that or hand copy all 178 verses of Psalm 119. Needless to say, given that alternative we all ran and soon we found out this Spartan form of discipline made many an average runner better and the better ones even greater. In no case was this more obvious than with our track and soccer teams. In as much as we did enjoy track and field it was the 2nd semester in the year that we all lived for. It was then our famous Red Eagles were let out of their coop and took to the field in quest of the ever elusive East Central Academicals Cup later Principals Cup.

WHERE RED EAGLES DARED

If "the quest for excellence" remained the mission statement of the school then the propeller that floated the ship socially was football. It was something that not only determined the bragging rights of each individual local government or state , but was a social economic event that could only be matched by the October 1 festivities. In the realms of a soccer world GCU can be compared say, to a Spain in the World or a modern Ghana in Africa. Bursting out of the gates like a cat whose tail had been stepped on and pummeling everybody in the early rounds GNU would never be able to get over that last obstacle or hump and win the big game. At least not when I was there ! I bristle with annoyance when Afro Americans talk about the blues and that they created it ! In that case what was that I was singing back home when Nike High School beat us 0:1 in Abe my own home town, or when SAGS rained on our parade with another 0 :1 upset in our back yard ? What was that that had me muttering and stuttering for 2 weeks when COCA Omits by sheer trickery extended a sure victory into a draw and beat us in the rematch the very next morning at 10 am after they had slept but kept us up all night ? May not have been Muddy Waters or Bo Dudley but it sure sounded and felt like the blues to me ! But to move on. Then came that one year where we looked so good on paper that even the Face to Face bookies had us going all the way. Learning from the premature exits from the years before and studying how we got shown the door, we had done some serious recruiting in the off season and had acquired a potent tour de force. The team now boasted of the very weapons that had let to many a demise in the previous years and they were quickly folded in like baking powder with flour with the existing line up. Just like ancient Rome did by gobbling up her enemies into her army GNU was all about assimilation after victory. But then at that time who was not ?

Sitting in the Library early one morning while trying to commit all of OA Laval's Economics Made Easy to memory I can never forget the sight of the team starting its morning run way before dawn. Cloaked in the cheap FAN supplied blankets that flapped around them in the Harahan induced mist they looked more like huge bats out of hell than the Red Eagles. This was nothing short of Overkill United and a quick inventory would indicate the following line up. In Goal stood arguably the best high school GK to come out of the Eastern region named "Tort" the cat [ School House and later Vasco Ad Gamma ] As his name indicated he led not just a charmed life on his line but was as lithe as the most graceful "Felix Domestics" one could imagine. Then came "Mr. Stability" Mandy Egbukichi [Erekosima House ] a monster of a full back that would later take his game to Vasco Da Gama as well. This guy defied gravity hence the nick name, and was know for precise clearances which could come either with him standing with both feet on "terra firma" , or while in flight upside down or sideways. A crowd and personal favorite, who saved me from many a wicked situation, he came to us from Methodist College Uzakoli. FYI before there was Okocha of PSG there was Okocha [ Couzins House ] of GCU whose Mum owned "Coms Bread" and whose game was as clean as his appearance was. I mean this guy even ironed his socks and made not just opposing forwards weak at the knees....but their sisters and girlfriends as well. Then there came"Man Mountain" [Niger House] another defender in form of a giant inherited from Holy Ghost Owerri and who could head a ball not just into orbit but whose goal kicks had to be often retrieved by hunting dogs and search parties. A great weapon to have when leading 1:0 and trying to chew up the clock. To add to this came Okonji the bow legged Wareham House captain whose in swinger corner kicks and savvy midfield play knew know bounds and was as complicated as repairing an air conditioning unit made in North Korea without an English manual. The triple pronged attack would be conducted by my own relative Sparto Nwosu [ Fisher House] whose Father ironically was the Chancellor of AGRIC and Samuel Owoh [Erekosima House] the great East Central State All Star whose shots could be called nothing short of lethal. I once saw him mistakenly reduce a Cattle Egret to a blur of bloody feathers and dribble a Williams of Afugiri player so badly......that he became so dizzy and promptly shared his lunch with the insects on field.

ENTER THE DRAGON

The epitome of perfection however , and what would complete "Operation Rolling Attack " just like dodo does rice and beans came in the form of the one and only ... Sir, Lord, Alhaji, Chief, General, Mogambo Nweke ! [ Fisher House] Mogambo Nweke came to us from Saint Theresa College Nsukka and his moves could charm a cobra. The older cousin of Joe Nweke [ Fisher House] whom I also went to school with at St. Nicholas Elementary School in Port Harcourt this guy was the real deal ! Having lost the previous year in the very Final we were now trying to reach by a lone goal, he came to us with the hunger not just to look at the golden fleece..... but to grasp it in both hands . Where do I start ? Lean and mean and with gazelle like legs that were powered by piston like laps probably were made somewhere in Detroit oops, make that Enugu's Mechanic District of Uwani , Mogambo at the high school level was a thing of beauty to behold. Ladies and Gentlemen listen attentively when I say that I have seen many an attacker in their prime of their lives bringing their "A" game to the table.....I have also written as a former sports journalist about many. Odegbami in Owerri against the Spartans ( SEE ARTICLE MR. MATHEMATICAL ).....Odegbami in Lagos against Algeria......Maradona in the Rose bowl taking on the FIFA select or while scoring the "Leg of Man" goal against Shilton ......Litbarski and Rummenigge for Germany against France......Platini for France against Brazil...... but never and I mean NEVER have I seen an effortless performer like Mr. Nweke. Coming from filthy rich upper crust family that frowned on any career choice that did not have Esq. behind it or Dr. in front I can safely say that his biggest obstacles came not on the field, but from his family who thought nothing of the game soccer. I wonder if they still feel the same way ? Thank God though that he persevered --- regardless of the myriad of warnings and lines in the sand that must have been drawn at various times --- and remained true to his absolutely phenomenal gift. If not, then surely we would have been robbed of ever witnessing him stand on the ball and salute the a visiting teams Insurance Agent ( Juju Man ) before banging in his 7th goal in a 10-1 pummeling. Nor would we have ever witness the Ibeku High School war which started when their female students switched sides to ours after Mogambo ran their team ragged while showing them what real side burns should look like. When the Maltex bottles started flying we "Gentlemen" also showed them who had the larger student body by rescuing their ladies to our campus for "extra comforting", and seizing their school sign board. BTW It was only returned in a redesigned format after extensive negotiations that included the NPF.

Then came that rainy day when Oboro High School found out first hand what we had all known for months now. I mean even though Diana Ross may have sung the words "Inside out Upside down you turn me" Mogambo showed them that It could be translated to Football as well. I mean single marking against Mogambo was like inhaling Shelltox and we watched as the Maestro took it to another level. I mean didn't they know this ? Well I can certainly tell you that if they did not.....they know now because he did it all. Lackadaisical flips over stunned defenders heads and cuts so precise that you needed band aids just to watch. It eventually became too much and we understood as defender after defender either gave way to the dreaded muscle pull or simply just faked it. In fact If I remember right the Referee had to warn Torty to stop sitting down on a dining room chair which our fans had brought along. Somehow they had anticipated that all the action was going to be taking place in the other half.

I could go on but what would I accomplish ? Every one of us here probably knows a Mogambo or 2. Maybe not a soccer player but maybe in the realms of math, architecture, cooking , law , or medicine. You know that dominant performer who through this thing called fate was either robbed, denied or prevented from ever taking it to the next level. In a time and place where people like say, the NY baseball pitcher Daryl Strawberry are given chances again and again , only to blow them up his nose again and again ---- it so tragic that people like Mr. Nnweke never really got the stage to fully show the world that this was something out of the ordinary ! All he would have needed was one roll of the dice to come up with double sixes ! Life may be beautiful as the movie says but it certainly can be just as cruel. Just like the World never saw an Odegbami..... Nigeria never saw a Nweke. Had he received the necessary exposure and not fallen in-between the cracks as a result of playing in the Post Biafra East and not say in Lagos, this leaner and quicker version of George Weah would have given Odegbami a run for his money on the right wing for Nigeria.....on his way to becoming a certain FIFA All star ! Rather as if to remind us that we are mere pawns on a stage and that someone bigger than us writes the story , Holy Ghost College Owerri would end our dream of that perfect season in the cruelest of all Semi Finals played in Enugu Stadium. In the packed confines of the Coliseum they went up first by 1 and then 2 goals as our lads looked a mere shadow of themselves. If we were Rome, then surely they were the loose states of Germania standing at the gates of our vision. Then Mogambo as all true tragic heroes do, rose to the challenge and commenced.....the drive ! While Mr. Stability sealed of the back the Eagles roared into overdrive. Over and over the swarm of the all red team carved into the all yellow one and finally the score board flashed 2:2. We would eventually loose at the result of an unjust penalty and as I walked behind a dejected shirtless Mogambo....."How was I to know that this was to be the last time I would ever see him play ?" In one last desperate attempt of bravado I would sneak past the Mobile Police officers and invert the scores on the score board indirectly making him a winner of his very last game. Call it 419 or what you may.....I have absolutely no regrets !

Mogambo would join the army of "unknowns" that would come to the US and blend in with the "known" in their various NCAA Conference races . The Dons of the University of San Francisco would have Odiye and the Atuegbu brothers while the Buffalo Soldiers of Howard University would have the former Ranger Kenneth Ilodigwe take them all the way to a NCAA final victory. Alabama AM would also reach the very same though losing this time with a team shored by 9 Nigerians including the Lagosian Sawyer. Nweke on the other had would become I believe, an All American at the University of Colorado where he would again catapult their program into a consistent Top 10 ranking. After sitting and adding the Nweke affair to the great issues of life and pondering over the " Whys" and "Ifs" I have finally come to peace with the whole bloody tragedy. While without doubt Colorado's gain was Nigeria's loss, I for one can count myself among the lucky few who ever saw the "greatest player that never was" do what he was supposed to do. Simply play !

Thank you Mogambo Nweke ! Thank you Government College Umuahia !