I Lost My Dad At 8 Yrs, Cracked Palm Kernel Before Becoming A Professor –Ex- Anambra VC

Prof Orajaka, can you take us back to your earliest memories after losing your father at eight years old. How did those years shape your character and world view ?

I was eight years old in 1956 when my father, Mr. 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 (he was a labourer with the Works Department of the then Eastern State and moved around Nnewi and Okigwe), I still cooked for him.

He and Stephen trained all of us from elementary school to university level. At the elementary level, Michael was in charge; at the university level, Prof. paid our school fees.

But that didn’t mean life was rosy for us. My mother, as a widow, was a very hardworking woman. She traded in palm kernels. She would buy palm kernels with the shells, and when we cracked them, she would sell the kernels and make money from there. I would say my mother was in charge of providing food.

RELATED

How To End Banditry, Kidnapping – Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association President

4 days ago

Plateau Safer Than Most States – Gov Mutfwang

5 days ago

At a later stage, she started trading in cassava—she made akpu, she made moi moi. She would go from our place to faraway Aguleri to buy cassava and bring it back to sell in our locality.

My immediate elder sister, Pauline, was hardworking too. Pauline helped our mother in selling all these things.

So, while our uncles paid our school fees, our mother worked hard with us to provide food and other necessities. We fetched ukpaka after cracking palm kernels. Our mother sold all these things to provide for us.

So, I learned the values of hard work, determination, obedience, and good conduct or character as the foundation for achieving success.

In the face of such person loss, 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 studied with. We made sure we read. In elementary school, we even studied up to 10 or 11 o’clock at night.

I attended my secondary school at 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 weren’t many vehicles. The only vehicle available then was an Austin lorry, which they fondly called “o ji azu eje” because, when you were travelling in it, you had to sit with your back facing the direction you were going.

On the day you would travel to Orlu, you had 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 vehicle. So, you would get to Onitsha at about 8:30 a.m., 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 off at the college, he never visited me again throughout my time there.

I had problems with two subjects in my first year—Geography and Latin. So, my result was poor. My uncles scolded me so much that, in my second year, I had to buckle down and study seriously because I knew I couldn’t come back again with a bad result.

I was in the “B class.” The brilliant students were in the “A class.” But because I worked hard in my second year, after that year, I improved and moved to the “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 in the 28th Battalion, Nkpor.

When the war ended, I took the school certificate examination in 1970. I don’t know if you’ve heard about “Expo ‘70”? The examination for the whole of the South-East (then made up of Imo and Anambra) was leaked.

So, we took our WAEC examination again in June 1971. That same year, I took the 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 in number. We would gather at 7 p.m. and read till 9 p.m., go for recreation for just 30 minutes, return by 9:30 p.m., and read till midnight. That was our daily routine.

I attended two universities overseas. I studied at the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I earned my Master’s degree in one and a 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 from that university. It was a white-dominated institution. So, Black Americans were very happy and proud to see a Black man earn a PhD there. A popular newspaper, El Paso Times, carried the news of my doctorate degree with the headline: “First Black Man To Obtain A PhD.”

Very important throughout all my academic journey was the personal determination and sacrifices I made, which saw me through and helped me achieve success.

Question: 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 on 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, when I went to represent the then Vice-Chancellor of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Prof. Pita Ejiofor, at a meeting of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors in Nigeria, I happened to sit beside the then Executive Secretary of the NUC, Prof. Peter Okebukola.

I used the opportunity to hint to him about the plan to establish Anambra State University of Science and Technology, and asked him how we should apply. It was through these contacts and subsequent meetings that we secured approval for the establishment of the university. So, I earned my appointment as VC through hard work.

One of the moments 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 for Igbo Language and Architecture.

Question: 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 the talk of the town that a university graduate had an uncelebrated Morning Mass wedding.
It was a tough decision I had to make.

Also, it was a tough decision for me in the United States to take up a dish-washing job as a graduate, just to enable me maintain my wife and our two children.
There was a friend of mine, a fellow Nigerian student, who followed me to the dish-washing job. After the first day, he told me, “Please, I don’t want to do this nonsense,” and he quit. But I didn’t quit, because I needed the job 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 tuition and taking care of our two children.

When I was at the University of Tulsa, I really roughed it out, doing the menial job of dish-washing, while my wife worked as a janitor cleaning hospital environments. This was because we also needed to pay for daycare for our children.

Our situation was so tough that we had to apply for low-income housing and food stamps.

I remember how I left the hospital where I had stayed with my wife who was in labour all night, and went to write an exam in Computer Science at 12 noon. After the exam, I went straight to the hotel where I worked as a dishwasher. I arrived at the hotel at 4 p.m. that same day, closed at 12 a.m., and then rushed back to the hospital to check on my wife and our child.

I returned to Nigeria after four years, leaving my wife and children behind in America because, at the time, my wife had not completed her Nursing degree. She, however, finished a year and a half after I left the U.S. and obtained her certificate.

So, I surmounted many obstacles to arrive at the height I have attained today. It didn’t come on a bed of roses.

Question: 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; I was just eight years old then. My dedication to my duties, obedience, and passion for education are the reasons I am who I am today.

Question: 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 at secondary school at BSC. The scolding, advice, and physical beating I received made me realise what success truly means in life. It was after that experience that I understood what I ought to be and how to work toward it.

Question: 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?

My answer is 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.