A Tribute to B.B.O. Emeh at 90
B.B.O. Emeh was born on the 27th day of November, 1925, into the family of Emeabiakawa Onwudinjo Okenwa and Ugwuezi Emeh, in Nnobi, a small rural town in Anambra State. He had humble beginnings. As a boy, he left home for Onitsha to learn tailoring. He didn’t last long as an apprentice, and had to return to Nnobi, before leaving again for Aba, after a smallpox epidemic had broken out in the small town.
When he returned from Aba, he paid a visit to two of his bosom friends, John Obiaso and John Amadi, who thought, because he had stayed in a big town like Aba, he must now be very sophisticated and knowledgeable in English words.
“Their next demand was that I should speak to them the English Language that I must have acquired in the township,” Emeh writes in his autobiography. “After all, everyone from the township must be able to grab some English words and sentences.”
But the young Emeh wobbled and fumbled. He could barely say a word in English or answer any of his friend’s questions. They had stayed in Nnobi, but because they attended school in the small town (John was in Standard One), they were better than him.
“While they went home triumphant, I went home full of thoughts,” Emeh reminisces. “My ego had been shattered by that avoidable encounter. But that interaction would later have its positive effects upon me as my mind immediately went to work, thinking how I could overcome that disadvantage of mine, which I had, hitherto, not known existed. It became obvious to me that the only way out of my predicament was to start schooling.”
That noble decision, however, would be beset by a myriad of challenges. Soon after he started schooling, he became an orphan. After completing Class 2, he moved to Onitsha with his brother Emmanuel and commenced Standard One at St. George’s School. But his brother was unable to continue paying his fees, and he had to drop out. Still, Emeh was unperturbed.”
“Instead of loafing about, I had to devise a means of helping myself to get back to school,” Emeh says. “I did such things as fetching water, which I exchanged for firewood with some Ngwa people who needed my water badly. On other occasions, I did odd jobs for the villagers and got paid with firewood, which I sold on my return to Aba town. But my little income could not return me to school, and so I toiled on.”
He would encounter many more challenges, but Emeh’s desire to get an education was unquenchable. He managed to complete Standard Six in 1945 at St. Peter Clavers, finishing as one of the best students in his class.
As soon as he finished Standard Six, he had several numerous offers, but chose to work as a teacher with the Christian Missions in Nigeria. His time as a teacher was chequered. Several times, he defied the school establishment, when he thought he was right. That, expectedly, made him a lot of enemies, and as punitive measures, he was transferred sporadically during his teaching days.
“The headmasters of my new posts were always warned in advance to drop their canes as I would not tolerate the flogging of pupils, no matter their offence,” Emeh says, “and that the headmasters must get my salary ready at the end of each month if they wished to avoid nasty scenes.”
However, his desire to learn and improve his educational status has not been quenched. In 1948, he went to St. Anthony’s College for a Lower Elementary Teacher’s Certificate. In 1954, he started reading for the London General Certificate of Education and passed all the six subjects he sat for in 1955. Also, in 1957, he enrolled for Economics, History, and British Constitution, and once again, he passed with distinction.
He got admitted into Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leone. On the day he was to set out for Freetown, he lost his wife, Miss Theresa Nwagoluiwe Uzowulu during childbirth. He was devastated. But after the burial, he picked up what was left of him, and left for Freetown.
Unfortunately for Emeh, despite having passed his first year examinations, he could not afford the fees for a second year at Fourah Bay. He had to sail back home, unsure of what to do next. But, as fate would have it, on getting to Onitsha, he found out that all Eastern Nigerian students studying in West African universities had been awarded automatic scholarships, including B.B.O. Emeh.
The scholarship took him to Kings College, University of Durham, to study Economics and Anthropology. In 1962, he graduated with honours from the School of Economics. On his return to the country, he was grafted into the civil service. He started work in the Ministry of Economic Planning as a Statistician.
His time in the civil service was fraught with several incidents of professional envy and strife, but the well-read Emeh trudged on, carrying out his duties diligently. During the civil war, Emeh was in charge of supplying fuel to the Sixth Brigade of the Biafran Army. He also did some statistical work, which included, among other things, the projection of the Biafran population in 1969, using the controversial 1963 census and the estimation of deaths through starvation and war machines.
After the war, he started a printing press, in a bid to add to his sources of income. After he left the civil service in 1976, the printing press, now under Ochumba Press Limited, would become his major source of income.
In 1978, he was nominated by his community, Awada Nnobi, to represent them at the Idemili Local Government Council. That would launch a colorful political career, during which he fought valiantly for the rights of his people. In 1980, he was nominated as the Chairman of the Anambra State chapter of the NPN. In 1990, he was chosen as the President-General of the Nnobi Welfare Organisation (NWO), the governing body of his hometown.
During his time as NWO’s chief, he constructed an abattoir at Afor Nnobi market, built a special science school, got the state government to establish a Board of Internal Revenue in the town, and reconstructed the Afor Nnobi market and its satellite markets, among other things.
In 2001, he was inaugurated as Population Commissioner for Anambra State, and retired in 2011. He was part of the 2006 census team. Today, he has given hordes of indigent students scholarships to further their studies, also founded the Ugwuezi Emeh Public Library in 2008. The library was declared open for public use by Dr. Alex Ekwueme.
On the 25th of this month, B.B.O Emeh will be 90. In that stretch of decades, he has traversed every facets of life, touched lives, and rewritten his own story. Unarguably, he is one who has mastered the art of turning lemons into lemonade.
As soon as he finished Standard Six, he had several numerous offers, but chose to work as a teacher with the Christian Missions in Nigeria. His time as a teacher was chequered. Several times, he defied the school establishment, when he thought he was right. That, expectedly, made him a lot of enemies, and as punitive measures, he was transferred sporadically during his teaching days