St. Thomas College Ibusa: The Establishment, Attempts to Liquidate it and the Fate of Survival

 St. Thomas College Ibusa: The Establishment, Attempts to Liquidate it and the Fate of Survival

Emeka Esogbue

“It is ironical for the people of Ibusa that rather than pinnacle St. Thomas Teachers Training College to the elevation of a polytechnic or university eminence that it should expectedly be, it was downgraded to a same-sex school that it is now. If it is a bit of sardonic laughter that an institution of this magnitude, the senior, better equipped and first-conceived higher institution in the whole of Mid-West Region was downgraded, the policies of the government in which they have been spreading the birth of higher institutions across the state to the detriment of this one with quality facilities, ready for upgrade, is ill-starred in the modern educational history of the community and social advocacies of the people”.

Emeka Esogbue

Despite the historical enjoyment of the status of the first higher institution in the whole of the former Mid-West Region, the history of St. Thomas College Ibusa, is the history of neglect and abandonment by Ibusa, the host community, near complete valuelessness, lack of government support, reduction in status, conversion to same-sex school and relocation from the present site by the government. In all its history of existence, since there have been several phases of attempts to it shut down. However, like the institution in love with its host community, the school has struggled to conquer every attempt of impediment and has ultimately lived thus, its modern destiny.  

The St. Thomas College, Ibusa was originally founded in 1928 as St. Thomas Teachers Training College in Ibusa, an Igbo-speaking community of Anioma in today’s Delta State by Bishop Thomas Broderick, SMA. Bishop Broderick was a European Missionary who was relocated from Lokoja to Asaba. Born on December 23 1882, Bishop Broderick was an Irish born-priest and a member of the Society of African Missions. He was ordained a priest in 1908 and the Titular Bishop of Petnelissus and Vicar Apostolic of Western Nigeria in 1917. His ordination took place in St. Brendan’s Cathedrals in his native Kerry. He would later become the Vicariate of Western Nigeria in 1918. However, he was understood to have visited the Gold Coast (Ghana) immediately after his ordination for missionary work. 

Bishop Thomas Broderick, SMA, a successor of Rev Fr. Carlos Zappa was reputed for the friendly relationship he enjoyed with the people of Anioma at the time. One of his kind deeds was his ordination of the first West African Catholic priest in the person of Rev Fr. Paul Emecheta who hailed from Ezi community of Anioma on January 6, 1920. With his educational experience being the first Rector of the Irish SMA Seminary in Blackrock, Co. Cork, it was not surprising that he had to establish St. Thomas Teachers Training College for the Anioma people in Ibusa, a community about 6 miles from Asaba from where he had hoped to spread the education. His attention on Ibusa may have been motivated by an earlier interest shown the community by Fr Zappa, his predecessor who established a Catholic Mission now, St. Augustine’s Church in the community.  

As it turned out, St. Thomas Teachers Training College became the first higher institution in the Mid-West Region and one of the earliest in the whole of Southern Nigerian Protectorate. As it has been held by writers on the spread of Catholic faith within the Asaba axis, the presence of St. Thomas Training College was significant in the promotion of the Catholic commitment to education throughout the Mid-West Region and beyond. The establishment of the higher education also inspired the establishment of other schools in the Region from the missionaries who were eager to replicate the success and achievements of the school. 

With time too, the beneficiaries of the studentship of St. Thomas Teachers Training College were found in virtually every Anioma town and village, a major achievement in the object of the establishment of the institution by the early European missionaries to the Anioma area. According to Rev Fr. James Haggins, SMA, the number of students attending Catholic schools increased in the episcopacy of Bishop Leo Taylor who succeeded Bishop Thomas Broderick and this was due to the establishment of St. Thomas Teachers Training College in Ibusa. Statistics showed an increase from 6,300 to 12,375 in 1939. Complimentarily, the number of students of St. Thomas Teachers Training College increased from 16 to 60 in the same 1939. 

Beyond the spread of education in the Anioma area that the Ibusa community had helped to spread throughout the Mid-West Region, there was also the promotion of the Catholic faith that also came with the establishment of the higher institution in the community. The presence of St. Thomas Teachers Training College Ibusa correspondingly meant that the Catholic faith had not only been embraced but had rapidly spread throughout the Region. It is one of the reasons the early Anioma Christians including the Ibusa society are largely Catholics today. The Training Centre for Catechists (TCC) established in Ibusa in 1927 in the adjourning compound with St Thomas Teachers Training College guaranteed the solid expansion of the Catholic faith beyond the community. Both schools raised trained teachers, catechists, interpreters, all of who were significant to the social growth of the Anioma area.       

Although Bishop Thomas Broderick, SMA, the founder of St. Thomas College, Ibusa died on Oct 13, 1933 in Genoa, Italy, he had helped to place the Ibusa community on the pedestal of educational growth. Founding the earliest higher institution of learning in the community, he had also gifted the community with the idea and love of western education. It was on the foundation of this that the people took the advantage of its human capital wealth so that it is one of the single Nigerian communities with the highest number of professors that are globally spread in different endeavours. They include HRM Obi Prof Louis Chelunor Nwaoboshi, Professor of Forestry who is also the traditional ruler of the community, Prof Pat Utomi, the most famous professor from the community, late Prof Buchi Emecheta, one-time Africa’s richest female novelist, Prof Augustine Onwuyali Esogbue, the only Black man in American NASA of his time, late Prof Chike Onwuachi, the first Head of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) and Chairman of FESTAC ’77.

Prof Fidelis Odittah, SAN, one of Nigeria’s only two Queen’s Counsel available to the nation, late Prof M. A. Onwuejeogwu, professor of Anthropology and writer of Anioma history, late Prof Emmanuel Nolue Emenanjo, Professor of Linguistics formerly with University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, late Prof Don Ohadike, Prof of History and Prof Chris Nwaokobia, Nigeria’s famous politician and activist. Others include Prof Fred Osy Osadebe, Prof Vincent Icheku, Prof Austin Onianwah, Prof Austin Uwandulu of the Academy for Governance, Prof Esther Ugoji, Prof Tony Mukolu, Prof Ngozi Iloba, Prof Chimgolum Nwabueze, Prof Laurent Akpadomonye and Prof Pat Okonkwo, among others too numerous to list here. 

The community practically has more than 100 living professors who are vast in their disciplines and have contributed their quota to global development in different scholarly fields. From the small to the big, the community has produced intellectuals and specialists variously spread across the globe. In spite of the role of Bishop Broderick’s St. Thomas Teachers Training College towards the socio-political and economic development of Ibusa and gains thereof individual benefits derivable from it, it would seem that the Ibusa people have over the time discontinued the treasure of the institution that brought the community to limelight. Once, the people were proud of the prestigious institution but with time, it seems nothing. Quite typical to the Ibusa community that does not avail itself of ‘host community advantages’, both chicken and golden egg of St. Thomas Teachers Training College does not matter again throwing up the genesis of the suffocating challenges that ended up taking away salt from the institution.

The trouble with St. Thomas Teachers Training College started with the nation’s independence and worsened with the takeover of missionary schools nationwide. Once administration had fallen into the hands of the nation’s indigenous leaders, the significance attached to the Ibusa institution ceased to exist. Appallingly, the ‘teachers training’ status and powerfulness became dropped by the government which reduced the standing of the institution to near nonexistence. By this unexpected arrangement, the St. Thomas Teachers Training College was downgraded to a secondary school that it became but the trouble was not over for the institution now downgraded from “St Thomas Teachers Training College” (tertiary institution that trained teachers) to “St. Thomas College” (secondary school). 

On May, 1995, the Abacha administration delivered the more dangerous blow on the once prestigious institution with the conversion of the once higher institution to Federal Government Girls’ College, Ibusa. The secondary school took off with 264 students, all of who started from Form 1. By converting the institution to a same-sex school that it currently runs, the Abacha regime as a final point, removed what was left from it. Worse still, the St Augustine’s students were relocated from their prestigious space which they had enjoyed for nearly 70 years to a perfunctorily delivered space at Umueze end of the community. Although the Abacha Government had genuinely gifted the community a unity school, the question is shouldn’t the government have procured a land in the community to establish the unity school? 

This was the deal the Ibusa community never brokered with the government and the area the people never concernedly looked into for the good of the community. The people never posed any interrogation or inquiry as to ascertain how the government could have procured a space in the community to establish an institution for them. Knowing that development is restrictive and short-changed when a government decides to make it conditional. Indeed, there was nothing wrong if the government had acquired land to set-up the Federal Government Girls’ College and allowing St. Thomas College to exist. In this way, both institutions would exist side by side in the community and St. Thomas College would particularly not be denied of her prestigious colonial heritage which is worthy of sightseeing besides the business of provision of western education. 

Established on a sprawling piece of land, donated by several Ibusa families of the time, the St. Thomas Teachers Training College is originated instituted on modern facilities and rested on infrastructural taste of a higher institution, the first and best of the time. A visit to the school shows that it is presently underutilized judging from the state-of-art facilities put up in the institution and the outsized piece of land on which the school rests. Read for its Award and Gala in 2017, the Ibusa Community Development Union (ICDU) carried out renovations on the Multi-purpose hall located inside the College in the areas of masonry works, electrical, carpentry, provision of temporary lighting from Umejei Road and others. The Town Union had found the hall unfit for the hosting of the event and decided on remodeling it.   

There was the Government Teachers Training College in Abraka, Delta State also established in the colonial era by the missionaries but there was St. Thomas Teachers Training College before this institution. The incongruity between these two institutions i.e. Ibusa and Abraka is that while the Abraka Teachers Training College was upgraded to a College of Education able to award National Certificate of Education (NCE) from 1971 to 1985, the Ibusa Teachers Training College was downgraded to a secondary school that was prepared for relocation from its colonial location in the later years. 

In its brilliant history, the College of Education, Abraka in 1981 became affiliated to the University of Benin, Benin City that could award degree programmes. Again, it was converted upward to Faculty of Education of the Bendel State University with its main campus located in Ekpoma. In 1991, when Delta State was created by Babangida regime, with Edo and Delta separated, the once Teachers Training College, Abraka became an autonomous Delta State University on April 30, 1992 as so declared by Olorogun Felix Ibru. As for St. Thomas College Ibusa, it was in a matter of four years that it would be altered to a same-sex school by the Government. 

The present University of Delta, Agbor, provides an example of an institution that was upgraded over the time to what it is today. the University was first established in 1979 as Technical Institute in October, 1979 in the defunct Bendel State before it was transformed to College of Education, Agbor. However, it was only on January 26, 2021 that the Governor Okowa-led administration upgraded it to University of Delta, Agbor, Delta State. Consequently, the upgrade was approved by National Universities Commission (NUC). It is safe to say that from 1979 to 2021, what started as a technical institute in Agbor, transmogrified to a university that it is today much to the happiness of the people whereas the St Thomas Teachers Training College of the Ibusa people, from 1928 to 1995, transmuted to a same-sex secondary school much to the surprise of the people.   

It is ironical for the people of Ibusa rather than pinnacle the St. Thomas Teachers Training College to the elevation of a polytechnic or university eminence that it should expectedly be, it was downgraded to a same-sex school that it is now. If it is a bit of sardonic laughter that an institution of this magnitude, the senior, better equipped and first-conceived higher institution in Mid-West Region was downgraded, the policies of the government in which they have been spreading the birth of higher institutions across the state to the detriment of this one with quality facilities, ready for upgrade, is ill-starred in the educational history of the community and social advocacies of the people. 

Worse still, if it is the star-crossed destiny of the institution that the students of St Thomas College be relocated outside the ownership of their legendary premises to Uzor-Umueze in the community, the students were unduly dispossessed of their Bishop Broderick’s missionary gloriousness by the government. Shoddily, all of these happened without any intervention from Ibusa people. This was the fate of Omu Boys Primary School, in the same community where ‘aged’ schools are known to gradually vanish. If it was not for the Old Boys of Omu Primary School, the school would not have returned and St. Thomas College would have since disappeared from existence since 1982. A people must learn to fight for their right, for the preservation of their core values heritage and values in legal comportments. The Ibusa people should accord their social sphere as much responsiveness as given to politics. Political molding and wisdom emanate from educational training after all.      

Until Admiral Joseph Dele Ezeoba (Retd), the nation’s former Chief of Naval Staff attracted the present Admiralty University to the community, it was a community without a single tertiary institution despite holding one previously and also the presence of huge number of professors and other scholars at her disposal. She was a community earlier illustrated in this piece, to host a higher institution as found worthy by the colonialists as far back as 1928, the first in the whole of the defunct Mid-West Region and one of the earliest in the entire Southern Protectorate but all of these, the Nigerian Government removed from her instead, upgrading others that came after her, establishing fresh ones in other communities and repositioning the St Thomas students outside their gifted premises. However, the Ibusa community should pay continuous gratitude to Admiral Joseph Dele Ezeoba for the patriotic, shrewd and calculative manner with which he attracted to his people, Admiralty University, Ibusa. 

It has been a community that the government scarcely remember in the location of laudable infrastructures, a community that thrives struggles on self-help before Admiralty University, the now biggest educational infrastructure in the community was added to the community. It is needless to state that before the phase of Joseph Dele Ezeoba’s blessing, the community’s biggest infrastructure was the General Hospital, attracted to the community by Rev Fr. Dr. Kunirum Osia, the then war-time Parish Priest of St. Augustine’s Catholic Church, Ibusa during the Gen Yakubu Gowon regime in 1970. Nonetheless, Ibusa jingoist, Admiral Joseph Dele Ezeoba (Retd) has had to patriotically repeat the Bishop Thomas Broderick’s gift of a higher institution to the community, something of a lasting heritage if only the Ibusa people do not fold their arms to permit its downgrade in future as now seen in their St Thomas College.

As for the present St. Thomas College, now pitifully dumped outside its ‘natural habitat’, the Ibusa people have to rekindle serious efforts and concerns towards it. How can a people forget so soon, their Mid-West heritage of knowledge? Can an institution that formed a society with its people, gifting them uncommon popularity among other towns and villages across the Region be assumed to be old and an inactive? The community should rise to enthrone host-community rights as a way to ensure smooth functionality of infrastructures available to her. That St. Thomas College, Ibusa, the distinctive feature that once identified the community does not enjoy even a website is contemptable to the institution one hand, and the community on the other hand.

It is now impossible to draw the list of the entire beneficiaries of the prestigious institution, an Ibusa school with her students greatly admired in efflorescent days but one cannot forget the individual giants who today are scattered across the globe having derived inestimable benefit from the Ibusa initiative of Bishop Thomas Broderick, SMA in St. Thomas College, Ibusa. The institution, without doubt, remains the biggest contribution in the making of the community. This is because nothing compares the values that education being the bedrock of any society emits social growth for the society. 

Emeka Esogbue is the winner of Patriot Award in Recognition of Research and Literatures to the Anioma People, Anioma Association Inc., Georgia Chapter