Mark Nwagwu

Mark Nwagwu is a Nigerian poet, columnist and professor of cell molecular biology at the University of Ibadan. His work has appeared on Vanguard, The Punch, ThisDay and Premium Times. Quotes I was born on May 17, 1937, in Obetiti, Nguru, in what is now Aboh-Mbaise Local Government Area of Imo State. My parents would have taken me with them when they moved to Aba, in what is now Abia State, in 1938 or 1939. I started primary school in 1942 at Christ the King School, first in its kindergarten years, 1942-43, and fully in the six-year full primary school, 1944-49. I was brought up as a Christian of the Catholic faith and was supposed to be a ‘good’ boy, obedient to both parents and teachers. I was obedient to my parents as much as I could, but I found school unbearable. In 1944, I was continuously punished for failing in arithmetic. My arithmetic teacher, Mr. Kuru, had no sympathy for me for my inability to grasp the sums. I developed the unsavoury habit of skipping school. I would hide somewhere and when I thought school was over I would come out and go home in the tradition of a good boy of Christ the King School. When I could not bear it any more, I enrolled myself in another school, Etikokwu Grammar School. How did I do this? I was only seven years old in 1944! I guess this episode tells you that I would take any steps to extricate myself from any condition I considered unfavourable, unsuitable or crucifying. In time, my father found out I had been admitted to another school and gave me thorough whipping. My father, Charles Obasi Nwagwu, was a shopkeeper at UAC, Aba, and could readily afford my school fees, though the UAC itself awarded me a scholarship for my secondary school studies at St. Patrick’s College, Calabar. My father paid my fees and all other requirements on my admission in 1950, and also in the following year, 1951. In my third year, in 1952, I received a UAC scholarship for qualified children of its staff for the remainder of my secondary school years – 1952-54. Let me quickly say that fortune is generous to me. When I graduated from University College, Ibadan, in 1961, there were two lines of research available to us for which we had been prepared, namely, parasitology and entomology. All my classmates who graduated with Second Class Upper Division honours went into one or the other on university scholarship and did their work at the University College. One exception, Anya O. Anya, did his ground-breaking PhD. research at Cambridge University and, for the first time, provided us with knowledge of the reproductive system of parasitic nematodes. I went on to teach at Government Secondary School, Owerri.