Fond memories as CBN Governor, Emefiele, returns to alma mater, 40 years after

It was with fond memories that the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, visited his alma mater, Maryland Comprehensive Secondary School (MCSS), Maryland, Lagos.

Emefiele, who left the institution 40 years ago, 1978 precisely, recently joined the MCSS community, parents, students and Catholic faithful to celebrate its golden jubilee.

The celebration also featured blessing of the School’s new chapel and commissioning of the multi- million naira multipurpose building.

The highly elated CBN boss, who was sighted pointing at a particular block of classroom probably his hostel or classroom at that time, joyously sauntered through the school premises and also commissioned some new projects of the school.

He expressed joy that the standard of teaching and learning is still high and even better than when they left.

He gladly commended former governor of Lagos State, Ahmed Bola Tinubu, for returning the school to the missions, saying that the infrastructure would have deteriorated if it were still with the government.

He said: “I left secondary school 40 years ago, 1978 precisely. With fond memories coming around here, I thank God for the grace to see this day. We should actually thank Ahmed Bola Tinubu for handing the school back to the missions. It has boarding house when I was here, then when it was handed over to the government, it wasn’t so. Today, I’m glad it has a boarding house and the standard remains very high.

“I am imploring the administrator to continue the good work, quality infrastructures with updated learning facilities are the things we need to keep the standard of education high in Nigeria, so that the movement of our children to United Kingdom (UK) and United States (US) for secondary education would stop. We need to encourage other mission schools to do exactly the same so we can lift standards of education high in Nigeria.”

Meanwhile, Archbishop of Metropolitan See of Lagos, Dr. Alfred Adewale Martins, who is also the proprietor of MCSS, has urged the management, teaching and non-teaching staff of the school to keep the flag of Catholic education flying.

He remarked that the school founded on January 21, 1969, has zero tolerance for exam malpractice, stealing and bullying, charging the teachers to keep maintaining the values for which Catholic education is known for.

According to him: “Catholic education is an education that is done in wholesome way, not just learning English and Mathematics. An education that is meant to impact upon a person’s life, teach values of life, honesty, integrity, selfless service, readiness to love for common good and philanthropy. All of these is supposed to be woven into education in Catholic schools.”

He said the newly commissioned multimillion-naira building has a chapel, multipurpose a hall, a refurbished library and laboratories, among other learning facilities.

The School Administrator, Rev. Sr. Agnes Adepoju, said the school is celebrating 50 years of active transformation and development of young ones. She said they operate within the national policy of education and offer quality teaching and learning to their students, while also teaching them values.

“We have come this far and we thank God. Today, we give assurance that we shall relentlessly pursue the goals and objectives of National Policy on Education and Catholic Policy, so as to give a good life direction to our students.

Commending the proprietor, the old students, parents, partners and all stakeholders of the institution for their moral support and generosity, she said, “we are compelled to ask for more as the work is not completed yet.”