The Church of Scotland Mission that spearheaded missionary activity in Ozu saw the introduction of functional western education to the natives as a veritable tool for the evangelization of the land. It came as one of the overriding policies of the missionary agencies in Africa as a whole and across the world where they pitched their influence. One writer noted that “It would be important to note that not long after the church came to Abam Schools for the training of pupils in the three ‘Rs’ of “Reading”, “Writing” and “Arithmetic’s” were established wherever the gospel went”. At first, it must be noted that one of the primal motives of the establishment of the school by the mission church was basically to train the people on how to read the Bible themselves for proper understanding.
By 1922 and 1924, there were Primary schools in Ozu and Atan Abam respectively. This mission strategy paid off as people started enrolling in the school en-masse in order to fight illiteracy which the church saw as a bugbear to concrete development. It is on good records that the school to be established in this part of the world was in 1904 at Arochukwu by Rev. John Rankin. The second was the one established by Evangelist Onuoha Kalu Onuoha at Elu Ohafia in 1909 and by 1920, Ohafia had had a total number of 14 primary schools across their spectrum courtesy of Rev. Robert Collins who took over from Evangelist Onuoha Kalu Onuoha. It would be noted that this fervor for schools helped the missionaries immensely in penetrating the people “soul and mind” and for this intimate reason, Rev. Robert Collins pushed into Abam for the establishment of education in the western style.
Abam and Ozu in particular, was a good ground for the educational push as the people on good records were said “to have embraced the project whole-heartedly”. Though there were still resistances from several corners as some very conservative parents and anti-Christian bigots saw the school strategy as a way of luring their children and wards from the existing traditions and native cultures which the people had considered natively paramount to their livelihood and existence. To this effect, so many parents refused to send their children to the white man’s school as it was a modicum of primitive culture/traditional corruption.
The first set of pupils in Ozu came mostly from the families that had accepted the Whiteman’s religion. Someone stated “that the first set were the group that finally became ‘Ever-ready Age Grade and Onyiwa’” in Ozu. Much of the curriculum was basically religion, geography, Arithmetic’s and literature. The Church ensured that everyone got this education as they knew it would be the bedrock of every development of the people in future and for the sustenance of the church and its consolidation.
Before the Catholic Church came with their school program in 1932 kudos to the Irish Rev. Father Daniel Walsh, almost everyone who needed to go to school had already enrolled in the Church of Scotland mission school. When the Catholic Church came on board and established their St. Paul’s Catholic school, the members they had garnered were massively withdrawn from the CSM School to flag off that of the new church they had proselyted to. It was from here that the real context and unhealthy rivalry begun between the two missionary Churches- Presbyterian and the Catholic that gave rise to the ‘poem’ cited above.
Graduates of the Church of Scotland mission schools in Abam were sent to Presbyterian Secondary schools at Ohafia and Abiriba while some went to Government College Umuahia, Queen’s college Lagos, Methodist College Uzuakoli and Hope Waddell Training Institution Calabar. Church of Scotland Missions hitherto Presbyterian Church claimed that the first and second and even third generation’s college of professionals from Ozu and Abam in general were trained by the Presbyterian Church.
As fate may have it, in 1964, Mercy High School (hitherto called Abam High School) was established by the Catholic Church under the ebullient authority and instrumentality of late Bishop Anthony Gogo Nwedo. History is of the opinion that the maiden Principal of this institution was Mr. Ukakwu Agwu (aka Teacher Alagi-Isi) who was a product of the Church of Scotland Mission School. The coming of Mercy High School was a big relief to Ozu sons and daughters who were enthusiastic about education. The proximity made other Abam indigenes to redirect their efforts to Ozu for their secondary education.
Before the rise of the civil war in Nigeria, this School had produced men and women that could compete favourably with products of Ohafia Girls Secondary (OGS), Enuda High School Abiriba, Mary Slessor Memorial Secondary School, Arochukwu, to mention just a few. The coming of the civil war stampeded the progress of Mercy High School, Ozu Abam, because the Biafra war machine massively recruited the new brand of college students that were bred in this institution as Biafran soldiers and the School itself converted to hospital and relief center to cater for the wounded in the war and for those who were physically ravaged by the war and had incurred the wrath of the dreaded ‘Kwashiorkor’ whose outbreak was engineered by the war.
Today Ozu could boast of so many college and University graduates. Academic Doctors and Medical Doctors have littered the space in grand style. We have college of Professors in different academic discipline’s; example of which is Elder Professor Catherine Ikodiya Oreh, officially the first female academic Professor in Abam and Professor Adighibe Egbuta, Rev. Fr. Prof. Michael Uka and Prof. Frank Agbai Okoro. Other college of professionals includes Marine engineer and Captain Chibuike Eke Usim, Petro-Chemical engineers Onwuka Oreh and Dr. Okuji Oreh, Elder Dr. John Egbuta Onyeani- Chemical Pathologist, Rev. Sr. Dr Chilee Okoko (who have broken grounds in the medical field). Others in the column are rife who have also trailed the blaze in the field of academics as educationists, historians, Lawyers, Bankers, Entrepreneurs, Agro-based Industrialists, Politicians, Psychologists, Social Scientists, Doctors in Philosophy in different fields, Lecturers in different Universities and Colleges across the world (such as Mr. Awa Nkole, Lecturer at Stephenson College, Coalville Leicestershire, United Kingdom), professional Teachers and Theologians. Others are too numerous to mention as space could be very limited to mention them all.
Today, there are number of Schools both government and private in Ozu. The old mission schools were by the ‘Land Use Decree’ of General Obasanjo in 1976, taken over by the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Soon after this, Mercy High School was changed to ‘Abam High School’; the Church Of Scotland Mission Primary School and St. Paul’s Primary School renamed Central School Ozu Abam; this later ramified to Okweji Memorial Primary School Ozu Abam. Today, there are other sets of private nursery, primary and secondary schools that are owned by private individuals and churches examples of which includes- Kolping International College (1993); Nativity Spiritual Year Seminary (1992), Ernik Commercial College, Holy Jesus Mission Commercial Secondary School, Dominion nursery and Primary School owned by St. John’s Presbyterian Church and St. Patrick’s Nursery and Primary School this owned by Sacred Heart Parish.
INTRODUCTION OF COMMUNITY SCHOLARSHIP SCHEME IN OZU
To boost the educational career of her children especially the most brilliant ones Ozu in the late 30s and 40s introduced a community scholarship scheme for her sons and daughters who measured very well in the schools. A veritable source opined that this was advised by the various missionary school authorities who saw the talents in these pupils and quickly recommended them for secondary education. To actualize this, some of these students saw themselves at Hope Waddell Training Institution Calabar, Government College Umuahia, Egwu-ona High School Abiriba and other frontline secondary schools across the country. This project was a community collective effort which our fathers did out of their kind hearts, benevolence and community generosity with a view to assisting them so that they too would in turn come up some day in future to assist the community. Some of those beneficiaries include Dr. Onuma Onwuka Oreh, Chief Eke Usim Achi and Mr. Friday Orji Ojembe to mention just a few. Story had it that these students so mentioned demonstrated exceptional brilliance in academics and thus attracted this largess to themselves by sheer merit.