Jonah Chiehika Aliche, A son Remembers, Honors

Jonah Chiehika Aliche (1908 – 1984): A Son Remembers, Honors
Back in October 2010, Prof. Kenneth Hardy of the Couple and Family Therapy department at Drexel University, Philadelphia PA had asked me what I considered very interesting question. I had finished my presentation, with a genogram and all, of my family of origin in the Person of the Therapist (POTT) class. Looking me pointedly in the face, Dr. Hardy asked if I thought I was a better father than my late father, Jonah Chiehika Aliche. My answer came swift and unequivocal: I am not, probably not! My dad raised us in a different age and circumstances, I added. The point here is that if my dad had brought us up here in America, and with all the resources at my disposal, he probably would have done a better job at childrearing than I’m doing today.
Of all the things that I do, on a regular basis, none is as important and emotionally rewarding to me as playing dad to my four young children! I really love it and often I second guess myself whether I’m doing the best that I can or even flog myself for not squeezing out more time to be with them and help nurse them. If you ever knew Chiehika Aliche, you’d not wonder where I acquired the interest and learnt the importance of playing dad. My late dad was a practical and hands-on father. Please, show understanding if I boast about this! Unlike many other men that I knew, growing up, my dad cooked and cooked and bathed us! On those early mornings when my late mom would go to the mission (church) to attend “class,” my dad was always there to get us ready for school. He was palpably possessive, protective or even obsessive about us!
The best thing about my dad was not so much about his role in the home, as his foresight! Arguably, more than many of his contemporaries, my dad knew that the way to the future was in acquiring formal education. He didn’t have the opportunity to go to school but he managed to attend night school to learn to write his name and speak smattering English! However, the revolutionary thing he did was in supporting others, and eventually his own children, to attain some level of formal education, the best he could, given his own lowly circumstances. My dad supported a few people, particularly two women in my family, when we were not even born. A few other people in our village he encouraged and assisted in small ways to go to school. These people are still living. My dad also told us stories of people from other villages that he helped gain entrance into the St. Luke’s School, Osusu, the only one, many years ago, that had Standard Six class in it.
Incidentally, by the time that my dad had us, six of us, late in his life, he had little or no resources to pay our way through school. It was a struggle to go through primary school, even, and secondary school was out of the question, until providence intervened. My dad spent his early years at Amorji with his maternal relatives. At that time, he was doing well trading in palm produce. Following an encounter with his dad on the way to Nbawsi, my dad returned to Osusu in early adulthood. Following a few but major events, he spent much of his wealth taking care of family matters and never regained momentum. Meanwhile, the more dominant section of our extended family had secured the family land to the marginalization of my own section. That explains why we had to be buying land and farming in far places, such as Ikem Nvosi, Umungaragu, Ehuma, etc. One thing that my dad had in abundance, though, was raw energy and determination to succeed. There was no odd job that was too bad or too difficult for my dad, if it produced money with which he’ll take care of his family! There was hardly any rich man in Osusu - Njoku Agharannya, Nwadike, Nwalocha, etc, - that my dad’s sweat did not help to make rich, as he tended their farms and did other menial jobs! Although I did not witness the interactions between my dad and these “big men,” I have a big stock of interesting stories that my dad shared with me of their antics and how he dealt with that.
Back to my dad’s love for education and his determination to have his children acquire it. For primary school, my dad made sure that we started and completed with our age mates. It wasn’t easy, though. The good thing was that my dad had a way of striking arrangements with the school authorities that ensured that we were never kicked out of school for nonpayment of school fees. The school authorities would honor their own part of the agreement and my dad will pay, not as and when due, but as soon as he could, in installments. And it worked! My dad’s knack for making friends and striking agreements that mattered also helped us during the Biafran War survive without the scourge of Kwashiorkor. His friendships with a man called Oribor in Okpuala Ngwa at the time and with Pastor Akandu’s wife ensured that we had “relief” materials enough to stave off hunger and ward off Kwashiorkor. When my older brother and I graduated from primary school, one year apart, we had reached our ceiling. Luckily for him an older cousin of ours in Amaekpu took him in to assist with his trading in bicycle parts from where he subsequently learnt to trade and establish on his own, eventually. For me, the initial arrangement to have me learn the vocation of shoe making did not go through until it was decided that I should go off to serve as a houseboy, which I did at Aba.
While I was houseboy, my dad never really accepted that fate for his son and the very first day he came to visit me at Aba, he took me home, unplanned! He didn’t like to see his son with bucket of water on his head climbing flights of stairs!! Subsequently, my dad arranged with Eze Nwagwu, a rising star in my village at the time, to have me attend Sam’s Commercial School Nbawsi. The arrangement ensured that Dee Eze paid my fees en bloc while my dad paid him back in installments, through the weekly Ogbo. And it worked! Yet, my dad was not satisfied. He aspired for something better than commercial school education for his son. As soon as word came out that a five-year teacher training program, preparatory to the introduction of Universal Primary Education (UPE) in Nigeria, was in the offing, my dad had me on the back of his bicycle to Ihie where we met mu uncle, Mr. O.O. Evurulobi who taught at the TTC Ihie at the time, to ask for assistance to help me get the entrance form into the program. A few days later, I was to ride with Evurulobi in his Peugeot 403 car to the regional education office in Aba for the form. Eventually, I was not taken in the program that year (1974-1975). As God will have it, I was successful the following year! There began my road to post-primary education, the one that my dad was comfortable with. While we were at Azuiyi Oloko TTC, my dad will ride in his bike from Osusu to Azuiyi Oloko, something in the neighborhood of 15 miles, every so often to visit me at school. He was about the only father who did this so often. In any case, this was the East Central State and some students came from as far as Enugu, Onitsha and Ukwa, whose parents cannot come that often.
As a freshman at the University of Lagos, in 1984, I had come home for the Easter break. As I prepared to return to Lagos, my dad called me aside and told me to return home, as soon as I was told that he was dead. I laughed this off and jokingly queried him how he could die now when he had survived complications from stroke in the past two years and had regained much of his mobility and speech. It was only two weeks after this ominous conversation that my cousin, Ndubuisi Njoku, appeared at the campus of the Unilag very early in the morning. He had traveled with the night bus, bearing this obviously devastating news! It was May 10, 1984 and my dad had passed on the previous day!!! It is instructive that I had gone to school in Lagos, from Osusu, because my uncle, Michael Uleanya, one of the people that my dad encouraged while they were is school was now an administrative officer at the NNPC Lagos and he was supporting me with pocket money when he could. One good turn, they say, deserves another.

For 23 years, after my dad passed, I agonized over how best to honor him, my hero. It did not take me time to arrive at the conclusion that the best way to honor my dad was to establish an institution that promotes education, his first love and passion. The problem was funding for any such project. Eventually, I registered the Chiehika Aliche Memorial Early Childhood Education Center (CAMEEC), in 2007, with Nigeria’s Corporate Affairs Commission, Abuja, as a charitable organization. CAMEEC was conceived as a center of excellence in early childhood education and research. Last September, CAMEEC opened its gates with 50 students, ages three and four. In two months, the second week of July, CAMEEC will be formally opened, during which a deserved credit will be given to a man, Jonah Chiehika Aliche, my dad, who gave his all for the welfare of his offspring. I’m grateful to the people who have donated to the CAMEEC project in the past. If anyone wants to contribute to the grand opening of CAMEEC, please visit www.alichechildcenter-ngr.org to make a donation, using your credit card. If you prefer, you can also send your check to Azubike Aliche, P.O. Box 146, Millville, NJ 08332. That way, you’ll be helping to give honor to who honor is due!!!
Azubike Aliche

The Fate of the African Child, as we enter 2011

The fate of Africa’s children, going into 2011
By Azubike Aliche

As the year 2010 comes to an end, today, I could not resist sparing a thought for the African child. After many months of not keeping up with writing my blog, I thought it was imperative that I do one today as an opportunity to reflect on the social condition of the African child, particularly the majority of Africa’s children that are poor and live, mostly, in the rural areas. Unable to write a full blown blog article, today, this would just be a case of a few random thoughts and cut-and-paste materials from other sources.

My first thought goes to the children of Cote de ‘voire (Ivory Coast), a West African country now on the verge of armed conflict, as its leaders squabble over who won the last election in that country and ECOWAS, the regional governmental body there, threatens to use force to install the internationally recognized winner. Reports show that about 173 people have already died from post-election violence. It can be assumed that some children have been orphaned as a result of this. Reports further say that hundreds of thousands of women and children have already fled to neighbouring countries, as armed conflict becomes imminent. There’s no question in my mind that school has been disrupted for thousands of children who are forced to assume refugee status in other countries.

My heart also goes to Nigeria’s children, thousands of them, reportedly working as prostitutes in Mali. A recent report says that a two-year effort to bring them back from Mali has not been productive, as authorities there fail to cooperate with the agents of Nigeria. The children were promised various kinds of legitimate employment when they left Nigeria, according to reports. Once in Mali, their traffickers are forcing them to work as prostitutes to make the money to repay the cost of their transportation or the cost to the agents who secured them. The face beating and torture when the refuse to sell their bodies to profit their abductors. Reports say that these are school age children, some as young as 12 years old. It is really a shame that children as young as that will, under any pretext, be lured into sexual slavery in another country. That the Malian authorities are not cooperating in getting these children from brothels already identified is a bigger shame and a blot on the image of that country.

Now, some cut-and-paste materials from Nigerian newspapers. There’s also a touching story below of a woman who is battling with raising six young children born within 18 months. The story was culled from the EaglenStyle magazine. It is safe to assume that children who are starting life as beggars will have little or no chance of getting formal education. Yet child begging is very common in Nigeria and many other African countries.

“... perennial high failure rate in the West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) in the last five years, which had been between 75 and 80 per cent. Last September, the low performance of candidates in 2010 WAEC and NECO examinations compelled President Goodluck Jonathan to call a Stakeholders’ Summit on the state of education in the country.”

“... recommended, among others, that poverty alleviation in the country should begin with increasing access to quality education by all children, irrespective of their gender, location or socio-economic status.”

“IT is certain that the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) has an uphill task in getting all school age children across the country, estimated to be in the region of 10 million, into the classes.”
“Teachers are required in quantity, quality and specialty based on policy dictates and curriculum offerings of a particular school and level of education. However, reports indicate that teachers have never been sufficiently supplied in schools because of the high manpower demand, the comprehensive and diversified nature of the curriculum at all levels, huge financial demand for payment of teachers, high attrition rate, brain drain syndrome, lack of motivation, inadequate training facilities, low morale on the part of students to opt for a teaching profession, low rating of teaching profession, and low quality of those available for training.”
- Dr Nosa Aladeselu, the Executive Director of the African Women Empowerment Guild (AWEG)

Woman Gives Birth To 6 Kids In 18 Months
Donations flowed freely from passersby into the coffers of a destitute with six children begging for alms at Ikeja area of Lagos State Southwest Nigeria.
The woman with her six children
The woman, Mrs. Aisha Ibrahim, 30, from Kano State, it was gathered, gave birth to quadruplets in 2008 and a set of twins in June 2010 in her village in Kano and came to Lagos to beg for alms when she and her husband could not cope with the feeding of the children.
The woman was seen on Awolowo Way, Ikeja where a crowd gathered around her and six children (three boys and three girls).
Many passersby pitied her and gave her money freely. They called on the Lagos State Government to come to her aid by providing for the children.
Speaking with reporters, Aisha said she left Kano for Lagos when the suffering became unbearable and there was nobody to run to.
She gave the age of the quadruplets as two years old while the twins are six months old.
She described her husband, Ibrahim, as a peasant farmer who cannot cope with the upkeep of the children.
Aisha was accompanied by a woman and her sister, who help to carry some of the children while she begs for alms.
She received money ranging from N10 to N500 and even more from passersby.
Aisha who stays at the Lagos Central Mosque, Lagos Island, appealed to Governor Babatunde Fashola to come to her aid by providing her accommodation and job to take care of her children.
She also appealed to Nigerians to assist her take care of her malnourished children who are living on the benevolence of the public.

The Countdown has Begun ... on my Birthday!

The Countdown has begun … on my Birthday!
On Monday, August 2, 2010, Mrs. Ebere Obiocha reported at my ancestral home, Osusu, to assume duties, as the first ever headmistress of the Chiehika Aliche Memorial Nursery School. The nursery school is part of the Chiehika Aliche Memorial Early Education Center (CAMEEC). The nursery school is opening its gates, this September. Incidentally, August 2 is also my birthday! When I reflect on this coincidence, I’m thrilled because Chiehika Aliche happened to be my father, a very good father at that! The realization that honoring him and his memory with something that can make a difference in the lives of others is becoming a reality even makes me more elated. And, when I thought of how best to honor his memory, I couldn’t think of anything better than giving people, particularly children, the opportunity to avail themselves of functional, affordable education, something that my dad worked hard to do and something that made me who I am, today!
My dad had us when he was already old and paying our school fees was a herculean task. He did not benefit from any formal western education, but for what he picked up in night adult school. He did not, therefore, have job skills. He had to live off his machete, doing all kinds of menial jobs to fend for the family, and particularly to send us to school. More than anyone that I knew, he was determined that we went to school, all six of us! By dint of hard work, he saw us all through the equivalent of the sixth grade, two through high school and me through college. Not that he paid my way through college. In fact, he died in my first year in college – The University of Lagos, Nigeria, in 1984. I actually stopped school after the sixth grade, stayed home for two years and started off in what was called a “commercial school,” a form of high school that was not in the public school system. It took a government free education program, in 1975, to get me back to the public school system and eventually to college.
Going by the stories that he told us and the evidence that he provided, my dad had been interested in supporting children get formal education, long before he had us, his children! He was an early believer in girl education and, in our own extended family, my dad had sponsored two girls to school before we were born. One of these is still living today. In our village, I know a few men who have shared their stories of how my dad chipped in small but fundamental assistance while they struggled to go to school. My dad also told me stories of how he helped a few people from outside our village gain admission into our local primary school, many years ago when Osusu had the only school with what was called “Standard Six” class in the neighborhood. So, against this backdrop, it was not difficult for me to determine that education was a good area to invest, in efforts to give my father what he would have liked to see, should he be living! As someone who had his first job as a teacher, it was also not difficult for me to determine that I’ll have the most impact if I invested in early childhood education, hence CAMEEC!!
Now, back to Mrs. Obiocha and CAMEEC! Mrs. Obiocha trained as a Grade Two teacher before earning the Nigerian Certificate of Education (NCE) in 1991. She retired recently from Nigeria’s public school system, as an assistant headmistress. At the CAMEEC nursery school, she will be in charge. I’ve interviewed her several times and have had extended discussions with her on issues of policy and strategy; I’m confident that she can give the school the leadership that it requires. She’ll be joined by another NCE holder next month to care for the first batch of three-year-olds in the nursery school. So, the countdown has begun, in efforts to build a center of excellence in early childhood education and development. So, far, CAMEEC has been built, essentially, on the resources that I’ve provided. I’m grateful to a few donors who have contributed to this effort. If you would like to help with a donation or get more information about CAMEEC and its nursery school and other programs, go to www.alichechildcenter-ngr.org.
Azubike Aliche

More Pictures from Ogechi's Graduation, Thurs, June 24, 2010

*In one picture, Oge shares a spot with little sister, Kelechi, and a friend.

Finally, Oge had her Graduation

Finally, Oge had her Graduation
This Thursday, Ogechi, my three-year-old daughter, had her graduation. Ordinarily, this shouldn’t be news or something that merits a blog article, except the attitude that she brought to the event! For the past three weeks, since she announced the upcoming event, she has reminded me about it, at least, five times. And when it was over, she had only one regret, in fact disappointment: Daddy wasn’t there at the graduation!
Even though she now has a baby sister who is as enthusiastic as she is about her daddy, Oge remains daddy’s girl. I drop her off at school every morning, before heading out for work. Most evenings, I pick her up, too. On those days that I’m not able to pick her up, it’s not good enough for her that her mommy picks her up. On this graduation event, mommy was there to take her pictures but when I returned to ask if she missed me, she readily answered in the affirmative.
The way Oge fussed about her imminent graduation, you’d think that she was graduating with a Ph.D. Indeed, from what I know now, it was her own Ph.D. I was, totally, wrong about what the “diploma” that she received meant to her. As soon as I walked, Thursday night, the diploma was the first thing that she presented to me. I could see from her eyes that it meant the world to her. If I knew this much, I would have taken the day off from work and be there for her! To understand my miscalculation, not that it is an excuse, you’d have to understand that I belong to a different order and a different generation!
I grew up in Nigeria, not in America! Twelve years after I arrived these shores, I’m still learning how Americans do their things. Sometimes, I’m intrigued by what I see; at other times, I’m flatly amused at how Americans approach issues! Take, for example, everyone who sets foot in any kind of academic institution, from preschool to the university is a student. In Nigeria, you’d have to have got to America’s equivalent of the 7th grade to earn the title of student. At the primary school level, you are addressed as a pupil. Another example: For completing preschool, Oge came home with a diploma! In Nigeria, you’d have to be in college (university) to earn a diploma. Here, high school graduates earn a diploma, not certificate, as we have it in Nigeria. Even the word, graduation, is reserved for college students in the system that I’m accustomed to. Anyway, Up America! Whatever anyone or system does to motivate our kids to learn and like school is worthy of praise!
Any time that I see Oge and her friends (that is what they call their classmates), I’m reminded that I did not have the opportunity of a formal early childhood education. More, importantly, my heart and thoughts go out to the millions of Africa’s children who have no access to early childhood education, more than three decades since my generation left primary school. In Nigeria, alone, only about 4.6 million out of about 23 million children, under the age of six are enrolled in any form of formal early learning centers. We can do better. If you are concerned about this appalling situation, as much as I am, visit my website at www.powereducationfoundation.com to see how you can help change it. If you would like to contribute to make the early learning center that I’m building in memory of late father be the best that it is designed to be, you can visit www.alichechildcenter-ngr.org and make a donation. For the entire year, Oge studied free of charge, under what is called the Abbot program in New Jersey. It is a form of head start program; something that you cannot see in Nigeria, perhaps much of Africa, at that level of education. In Nigeria, though, education is free from the equivalent of first grade to the ninth grade but, ironically, not at the preschool level.

Our Children are growing --- away from our culture

Our Children are growing…away from our Culture
In the last two weeks, I’ve taken my kids to two marriages, one a church wedding and the other a traditional Igbo (African) marriage. I’ll return to this to dwell on how these two marriages present two different faces of culture that govern the lives of Africans in the Diaspora, such as me.
Two things happened this past Saturday, June 5, to warrant that I reflect on how our children are growing up, away from our culture, the Igbo culture. Please, note that I, deliberately, did not make reference to Africa’s culture, for Africa, even Nigeria, is a multicultural society. First, Uche, my five-year-old son, looked for every excuses to avoid wearing the traditional Igbo “jumper” shirt, as we prepared to attend a traditional marriage ceremony of a family friend’s daughter, in Bellmawr New Jersey. Penultimate Saturday, when we attended the church wedding in Philadelphia, PA of what is now Mr. & Mrs. Okechukwu Onyeizu, Uche and I wore ‘jumper” shirts. At that time, Uche did not complain and seemed to like it. Ordinarily, traditional Igbo attire would not be the most appropriate dressing for a church wedding but neither Uche nor I had any official role in the wedding. So, we chose to appear Igbo.
Yesterday, however, the event at hand is a traditional Igbo marriage, something rare to find on the shores of the United States. So, I put my feet down that Uche must put on Igbo attire, just like me. We did not only have to appear in traditional Igbo attire, it has to be Isi Agu, one that has the tiger’s head inscribed on it. I was to add a black cap to match. Interestingly, Uche liked my cap and pestered me to let him put it on. At some point I let him, temporarily. If I was a title holder in Igbo land, I’d be wearing a red cap on my Isi Agu outfit.
At a time that I had felt relieved that Uche was comfortable in his traditional Igbo attire, Nnenna, my seven-year-old daughter, made a statement that got me back worrying if I had Igbo kids with me or just typical American children. She called a monster what every seven-year-old traditional Igbo girl would readily tell you is a masquerade. Whether it is here or in the motherland, hardly is any Igbo ceremony concluded without a traditional Igbo dance. Yesterday’s traditional marriage ceremony for Chizorom Eke-Okoro and Uzoma Ebisike was not different. The organizers hired the Universal African Dance & Drum Ensemble, which provided a spectacular entertainment extravaganza at the occasion; something that sent me back to Igbo land, emotionally. In many cases, an Igbo dance ensemble, just as the one in reference, would have a masked dancer, often referred to as a masquerade. In Igbo land, masquerades have their own myths associated with them. That, of course, is outside the scope of this article. But to call a masquerade a monster is almost a sacrilege. So, when Nnenna called the masquerade a monster, it presented a teachable moment for me and I went to work, right away. I can tell you, though, that it wasn’t that easy to get her out of her perception of what, in some Igbo communities, is considered sacred and revered. But isn’t she growing up in a different culture, away from ours? The whole thing reminded me of the attitude and perception of early European colonialists to whatever was African, something they didn’t even understand in the first place.
It is interesting that there is a lot about the two marital unions being discussed here that leaves some hope that Igbo culture is not about to go into extinction, even in America. The parties involved, like many other Igbo in America, heeded the Biblical injunction that people should marry from their culture, not out of ethnocentrism or any racial prejudice but to preserve what is left of their culture. All four people were born in Igbo land and three out of the four grew up in America. Eleven years ago when I met and became friends with Rev. (Dr.) Sunday Eke-Okoro and his family, Chizorom (the bride in yesterday’s traditional marriage) was just an 11-year-old girl. I believe that it is in the interest of Igbo culture that she chose to marry an Igbo man (Uzoma Ebisike) and that the family decided to give us a wonderful Igbo traditional marriage ceremony, with all the rites observed. No Igbo marriage is ever complete and legitimate without a traditional marriage ceremony. So, court or church marriage is not enough for the Igbo. The traditional ceremony is the one that gives the community a chance to have a say in and offer their blessing to the marriage. In fact, there are people who will argue that any Igbo traditional marriage done in the United States or anywhere outside Igbo land may still suffer a crisis of legitimacy.

Our Children are growing --- away from our culture

From left to right, the "monster", newly married couple leave, the "marriage train," Dr. Eke-Okoro watches daughter share wine with suitor, Dr. Eke-Okoro blesses the marriage and effectively hands daughter over to suitor, the masquade ('Monster'), the bride and maids dance, Uche and I, and finally, Mr. & Mrs. Okechukwu Onyeizu, as the priest joined them.

Please, see the following posting for the accompanying article to this set of photos.

- Azubike Aliche