My father influenced my career as a teacher — Ikpeazu
By Ugochukwu Alaribe
Immediate past Governor of Abia State, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, who turns 60, today, spoke to Vanguard on how he will mark the day by empowering young men and women with business skills. He also expressed his belief in the Nigeria education system and disclosed how his father influenced his love for teaching.
How do you feel at 60?
I thank God that I’m strong and very healthy. I’m good,but I don’t feel 60 at all. Though I’m not celebrating, I’m marking my birthday by interacting with the common people. We have something that has been going on for some years now. This is the fourth season now where I dedicate my birthdays to interaction with startups; young men and women who are desirous of starting business.
I combine capacity building where I bring some resource persons to talk to them and perhaps expose them to sources of funding for new businesses whether through government grants or soft loans.
Other people will talk to them about registration and licensing for small businesses as well as basic book keeping on how you can differentiate between gross and net profits.
They will also be lectured on how you can plough back part of your income into the business and the imperatives of expansion .What do you think about in a futuristic manner to be able to take developments and happenings around your environment to leverage the growth of the business? How do you build resilience in a volatile economy? How do you create a buffer around your business for it not to collapse? This is because the business may collapse if you don’t take time as inflationary trends and health issues can consume your capital. Proper prioritization of expenditure and investments for small businesses are some of the key areas to be looked into during the lecture marking my birthday.
We will be talking to ordinary traders. I want to encourage people to imbibe the culture of taking what is replete in one place to another place where it is scarce. You can make money when you take sand from the beach where it is common to a place where building construction is happening. How do we leverage the spatial and differential distribution of resources to make money? If there is a new school or building construction coming up, somebody will need local food sellers. This leverages on new businesses to open ancillary services to serve or benefit from the establishment of the new business. The small business person will get money and everybody will be happy.
I don’t want people folding their hands and complaining without doing anything. From the spiritual point of view, each time we complain, we give glory to the devil because the devil is always happy to see children of God complaining but we can look up to other things. Even science underscores the fact that the best we have done so far is to use 10 percent of the human intellect. So, what happens to 90% of the human intellect? But we can find solutions to most of our problems.
I am encouraging our people to rise from the dust of despondency and take a step of faith and do things. We must also allow time for our small businesses to grow. At times, we bring too much pressure on the small businesses. There are social and environmental issues affecting businesses. These discussions will be held in a convivial atmosphere during the lecture and the local business people will be allowed to give their experiences.
Was your life as a teacher influenced by your father who was also a teacher?
The main vocation of my people is farming and teaching. We used to see teachers as the ‘know it all’ class of people. They were neat and clean, wearing the best dresses; beautiful white short -sleeve shirts.
In my area, everybody wanted to identify with teachers and the discipline that comes from being a teacher. They were always on time and saying the right words with power of expression. These were beautiful things that teachers were known for.
I cannot forget how I watched my father teach Geography to primary four pupils. His popular saying when he was teaching them about the map of Africa was that Africa was like a mango. So, if you know how to draw a mango; you can draw the map of Africa. I was greatly inspired to speak like my father and I was greatly influenced by him to take to the teaching profession.
People see you as a pacifist who doesn’t like making trouble…
I used to be very stubborn while growing up as a teenager. Those who saw me as a teenager and come to see who I have become, find it difficult to reconcile the two personalities; Okezie Ikpeazu as a teenager and Okezie Ikpeazu as an adult.
I think that if you are strong cerebrally and intellectually, you can have certain things come to you but I want to underscore the fact that the hallmark of human relationship is that conflict is part of it. People like conflict; at times, you run away from conflict and it will still pursue you. The Bible in one chapter talked about a war waged against David. So, people do well waging such wars; but someone like me prefers to create an ambience and conviviality to enable me to achieve what I want to achieve.
At the end of the day ,you may not be reckoned with as somebody who fought the most wars.
Rather, if you have a dying people; you may be reckoned better as somebody who saved their lives and achieved more for the people under the circumstances. At all times in my life, I have always looked for and preached peace. It is not easy, otherwise the Bible would not have advised us to search for peace. If your life is threatened , I also think that you need to protect yourself.
Why didn’t your two daughters who are now medical doctors study abroad considering that you had the means to sponsor their studies abroad during your time as Governor of Abia State?
Before I became Governor of Abia state in 2015, I said that if I cannot have faith in the Nigerian system of education to the extent of not sending my children to study in Nigeria; then it will be the greatest injustice to the common people who depend on what we can offer here for the education of their own children. I think it is borne out of a deep sense of patriotism and in keeping with my vow that I decided to keep my children to study in Nigeria
I thank God that I did that; I also thank my children for remaining humble and being level-headed in school; not minding the opportunities and privileges my former office offers.
I still believe that the best is yet to be seen out of Nigeria. I believe in the Nigerian education system. I’m a product of Nigerian education; some of my mates believe that I’m a good biochemist. There is a great room for improvement. I also believe that all is not entirely bad about Nigeria’s education, but it will only get better when we learn how to patronize the system that we have created. If all of us, the leaders, know that our children will have to study in Nigeria, we will do better in mainstreaming what it takes to create a good environment for our children and other Nigerians.
A lot of things need to be done. Two things are required for anybody to achieve landmark success in any field. One is your determination which no one will offer you. Your determination as a teenager, student and young man to set your eyes on a goal or vision and go ahead to pursue it. Then,the second one is hard work itself that will make you realize that it is only you that can bring it to the table.
The duty of the government is to create the enabling environment. What I see as a challenge towards achieving it is that we need to put the light at the end of the tunnel so that it will be a pull instead of a push. People need to see that they will get a job once they graduate and be recognized when they do well. It will also be better if our reward and recruitment system imbibe meritocracy and respect for the things we do and produce locally. Then, people will be encouraged. This is why I preached ‘made in Aba’ during my tenure as Governor of Abia State.
If the government begins to prefer degrees from outside Nigeria, what we will be doing is to demarket our education system and discourage patronage by our children. This can be very dangerous, going forward. Government has a big role to play while the beneficiaries of the education also have to bring something to the table in terms of achievement.
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