The Schools That Shaped Us

The adventure in Nana Primary School came to an end.
Common Entrance came.
And with it, the gatekeepers of destiny.

I cried the day I did not get into FGC Warri.
It felt like rejection, like the door of promise had closed.
But in Warri, we knew: getting into certain schools needed some sort of connection.
And I tire.
Some went to other institutions.
I heard Olu Akpata went to King’s College, Lagos.
Akpowowo entered FGC Warri.
Others went to Government College Ughelli, Our Ladies, Unity School Agbarho, Hussey College, St. Theresa’s.

My father himself had attended Urhobo College, Warri.
Me? I landed there too, first — Urhobo College. Spent only one day.
And later, DSC Technical.
Where we rivaled all the schools in town, carrying our pride like a banner.
Because in Warri, schools were not just classrooms.
They were kingdoms.
They carried names that opened doors,
and reputations that marched ahead of every student.




Urhobo College.
DSC Technical, Hussey College.
Federal Government College, Warri.
To call their names was to announce history.
Urhobo College — ah, the pride of a people!
Built by hands determined to give their sons and daughters a future.

It stood not just as a school but as a statement:
that children would not be left behind.
Its gates opened, and with them opened the path to professions, to titles, to pride.

Then there was Hussey College,
DSC Technical High - born of steel and industry,
where the children of factory workers and managers sat on the same benches.
Its classrooms carried the rhythm of discipline,
the hum of mathematics, chemistry, literature,
all framed by the sound of steel rolling in the distance.
I was a non staff . A place was carved for us on the table . 

And FGC Warri — Federal Government College —
that was the crown jewel.
Unity school, they called it.
Students from every corner of Nigeria —
Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Efik, Tiv, and more —
sat together under one roof.
It was Warri, and yet more than Warri.
It was Nigeria in miniature,
a glimpse of what could be,
if only the country could live as its children once studied side by side.
Exams were battles.
Common Entrance was the gate.

We sharpened our pencils in Mr. Igini’s class,
we bent over sums in Mr. Onotafe’s lesson,
we rehearsed essays under kerosene light.
Because to pass into these schools
was to earn more than a seat in a classroom.
It was to earn respect.
It was to carry the pride of a family.
It was to walk taller in the market,
because “my pikin dey Hussey,”
or “na FGC he dey go.”

These schools shaped us.
They made Warri not only a city of oil and quarrel,
but a city of learning.
They produced lawyers, doctors, engineers, judges, teachers, professors —
men and women who carried Warri’s name into the world.
And though quarrel would later scatter us,
the memory of those schools still binds.
Because in their classrooms,
we learned side by side.

We competed, we quarreled, we laughed,
but at the end of the day,
we wore the same uniforms,
marched to the same drums,
and carried the same hope:
that education could lift us all.
That was Warri’s other gift.
Not only oil.
Not only quarrel.
But schools that could turn dust into destiny.
#FindingWarri #WaffiTales #DeltaStories #Urhobo #Itsekiri #Ijaw #nigeria #uvohonoriobe