Since Enugu State was created on August 27, 1991, more than three decades now, no woman has ever headed the State PPSMB. It pleased God that Favour Ugwuanyi would be the one to break the ice. A seasoned Administrator, teacher and leader, who had just returned from studies in Kuru, Jos, she knew that the responsibilities of her office were enormous, and that expectations were high. She would not disappoint.
Favour Ugwuanyi assumed office as the Executive Chairman of PPSMB on May 19, 2022, and opened a floodgate of innovations. Before becoming Executive Chairman, she had been Permanent Secretary of the Board, so she knew where the shoes were pinching. She knew also that she would not be able to translate her ideas to reality without first improving the capacity of her work-force.
So, she set to work, and launched out by organising a Teachers’ Summit with professors in Digital Science cherry-picked from different institutions as resource persons. The impact of the Summit on the capacity of teachers in public secondary schools was phenomenal, and the fruits it yielded soon became evident in the classrooms. Even the most conservative and dyed-in-the-wool teachers started to adjust to the use of online resources as teaching aids.
Again she sallied forth to consolidate these gains. This time she leveraged her contact at NIPSS, Jos to organise a three-day residential capacity building workshop for the three hundred school principals in Enugu State. The Management Team of NIPSS Kuru, Jos were the resource persons. Anybody who has been to Kuru would bear witness that the institution commands high-voltage brains in the country. Interestingly, the workshop was the first of its kind anywhere in Nigeria. Till date it has never been replicated in any other state, including the FCT. Leadership is about ideas; and there is nothing as cheap as talk.
Enugu State was soon rewarded for these efforts. In 2021, and for the first time in the history of the State, our State was adjudged best in WAEC examinations. The teachers gained in capacity, and it manifested in the students.
Favour was firing from all sides. And her innovative ideas were coming in salvos. She introduced what is now popularly called Skills Festival targeted at the students themselves. In 2021, for example, a one-month Skills Festival was organised for all the students in public secondary schools in Enugu State. It was repeated in 2022. A more elaborate skills training dubbed Project ‘O’ was also introduced for O’ level students in public secondary schools. The Project ‘O’ is directed at students at the last lap of their six-year journey, the aim of which is to uncover the talents of students that might have been neutralised or diluted by six years of purely academic training.
Again the impacts of the Skills Festival and Project ‘O’ were astonishing. In fact, it turned out to be a revelation: there are students, who are not good at school-work, but are amazingly talented. The self-knowledge gained from these Festivals and Projects has helped numerous students to direct themselves to areas of natural aptitude, and ward off the incapacitating frustrations that arise from pursuing disciplines and skills that are alien to the individual’s natural inclination. Statistics has shown that the less frustrations we have around us, especially among young people, the safer we all are.
To chronicle and catalogue the innovations Favour Ugwuanyi brought to PPSMB would consume thousands of pages. In fact, her footprints on the physical infrastructures in public secondary schools are even more intimidating. Let me point out, however, that, in my estimation, the most important thing she brought to PPSMB is Energy and Forcefulness. She is not the kind of sedentary, arm-chair Executive Chairman that will sit back in the office to dish out orders, she is always in the field herself. She is everywhere at once. It is common to see her striding noiselessly into the school premises without prior notice. And that is how she put paid to the menace of loitering during school hours.
In Racism Studies in the West, it is argued that women are twice victimised: one, they are victimised for being blacks; two, they are victimised for their gender – for being a woman, a supposed weakling created from the rib hived off the man.
Thankfully, but sadly still, in our own part of the world, the women are victimised only for their gender since we all have the same pigmentation. But even that can be terrible as there are basically no laws that provide guardrails for women.
Favour Ugwuanyi has paid a huge price for breaking into a place that had always been the prerogative of the men. From day one, she was never given a chance to succeed: she was covered on all sides with gimmicks, gossip, baseless accusations and all manner of shenanigans. Not even her energy, her passion for work, her track record of achievements, her aversion for greed and corruption, none of these fine qualities could placate them. But God has not, and will never fulfil the evil longing of the wicked.
It is shocking that in twenty-first century some men still feel uncomfortable or even threatened or may be even cheapened to have a woman preside over a meeting which they are attending. It does not matter how eminently qualified she is; she just shouldn’t be number One. This extreme chauvinism and unguarded masculinism ought to be eliminated from our homes and work-places. Indeed let who cap fit wear it!
May God keep you, Dr Favour Ugwuanyi, mni, an administrator per excellence.
Dr Mark Ndubuisi Michael
