Trinity Old Boys renovate school buildings, equip classrooms

Trinity Old Boys Association (TOBA), an association of former students of Trinity High School Oguta, Imo State, has launched the renovation of a one-storey building comprising several classrooms, including five science laboratories, a computer classroom, a Youth Corpers Lodge, a Principal office and toilets in the college. 

The works carried out are structural integrity tests and reinforcement in the Science and Administrative blocks. There was Woodwork, roofing, reflooring electrical wiring, installation of ceilings, steel doors and windows of the buildings, among others. 

During the commissioning of the project, the Imo state commissioner of Education, Professor Johncliff Nwadike, who is also an old boy said that educational development requires collective efforts.
He said: “Every person should be a critical stakeholder in the educational sector. The truth is that the government can’t do it alone. TOBA has intervened and shown good examples of giving back to the school that made them what they are today.

“We can’t be in a community and our schools are collapsing and we are keeping quiet. The school belongs to us and we should try as much as possible to do the little we can. When one roof goes off and we are watching it, waiting for the government to come, even when the government was unaware a roof was blown off, the whole thing will deteriorate. 

“Communities should be partners in progress. Please, if something is happening intervene, but when the intervention is beyond your capacity, there is a need to report and inform the appropriate authorities. Government can’t be everywhere, but when you report, something will be done,” he said. 

 The Chairman of TOBA, who undertook the renovation project, Pharm Godwin Achunine, explained how things rapidly began to change in the school and other schools taken over by the government after the Nigeria civil war. 

 “The character and names of most schools taken over by the government changed. Standards fell. Dilapidation of buildings, lack of qualified teachers and ill-equipped laboratories became the order of the day.”

Recounting the state of the school when the old boys gathered together to renovate it, Achunine said that the school up to 2016 was in a sorry state of neglect and dilapidation until TOBA intervened. 

“A worldwide reunion of Trinity old boys took place at the school assembly ground on the 30th of December 2016. Our old boys wept at the sorry sight of their alma mater. We didn’t want to see the school that produced us go out of existence and into oblivion. We resolved that day to embark on sacrificial contribution towards the renovation,” he said.