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She has established for herself a reputation of being a high-flyer and gunner for distinction in her educational and ecclesiastical careers, especially at the various Catholic Mission founded and run schools where she had worked. As Principal of our Lady of Fatima College, Port Harcourt, for instance, she had consistently guided the all-girls secondary school to record some of the best West African School Certificate Senior Secondary School Examination WASC/SSCE results in Rivers state, every year and win laurels in national academic competitions. Many of the products of the schools graduated with distinctions in the various universities into which they were later admitted including Quinette Abua who emerged the best graduating student in her field of study at the prestigious Afe Babalola University Ado-Ekiti, (ABUAD), last year.
But when Rev. Sr. Loretta Maris Owalegba Ibobo reported for duty as Head teacher of Sacred Heart Nursery and Primary School, Ibadan in September 2017, she confessed to facing a seemingly daunting challenge – how not only to sustain, but also raise the bar on the legacy of excellence for which the highbrow mission school located at Akinyemi Way, off the popular Ring Road, in the Oyo State capital city was noted.
With a quality and committed staff [both teaching and non-teaching] beautiful classroom buildings, game pitch and other facilities all well-laid out in a serene, and scenic environment, Sacred Heart has produced many distinguished Nigerians in the professions, public service, business and other sectors of the economy.
A cache of academic awards and distinction prizes including trophies, plaques and framed certificates won by teachers, pupils and the school decorated the shelf, desk and other available spaces in the office of the Head teacher, as testament to the school’s rich pedigree.Besides emerging first in the state edition of the Science Teachers of Nigeria- organized quiz competition, a feat it repeated in the finale at the national level held in Katsina in 2018, the school won gold and bronze in a science, technology and mathematics contest in which five of the school pupils were among the best nine participants in February, this year. It also came fourth in the 2017 edition of STAN competition held in Port Harcourt, Rivers State and first in the primary school category of a contest organized by the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) Oyo State branch in 2018. Also, the school was awarded a Certificate of Excellence by the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools, Ibadan South West Chapter and a Merit Award in the 11th edition of the National Mathematics Quiz competition.
However, by the time Ibobo was assuming duty, some of the facilities that had propped this legacy of excellence, as old as the school which was founded in 1962 and run by Sisters of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus Congregation with headquarters in Lagos, had come under strain and were wearing out. Chief among these was the school library which had become old, decrepit and ill-equipped with obsolete books, chairs and reading tables!Rehabilitating and improving the reading room became Rev. Sr. Ibobo’s greatest priority as, she said, it was an eye sore that did not even encourage the pupils to want to visit and use it.
Her words: “The Library is the heart of the school. What will a school be without books, and what would the students be without reading? So renovating the library was uppermost in my mind in order to get these young ones to read, especially where studying has become a big problem for this generation due to distractions by phones and other digital devices.”
The problem was how to get the money to adequately turn around the fortune of the library. But dreams do come true and prayers get answered. The library has been refurbished and transformed into a state-of-the-art facility that would be the envy of even of some tertiary institutions in the country, courtesy of some of the old students who left the school in 1984. The hitherto pockmarked floor has been tiled, the fallen ceiling slabs and poor lighting system fixed and the walls now washed in fresh and gleaming coat of paint in the face-lift! Also, a new set of furniture, book shelves, desks and chairs as well as a newly installed spilt AC system combine to give the library a perfect, conducive ambience for studying. But more importantly, the Set ‘84 donated an imported consignment of books covering various educational subjects including nursery rhymes, cartoons, novels as well as encyclopedia to restock the library.
Spokesman for the team, UK-based businessman, Mr. Kayode Adeyemi, said at the cutting of the tape ceremony that he and his colleagues hoped to donate computers and equipment so the reading room could have an e-library section. Adeyemi declined to disclose how much his team spent on the project, saying: “We can’t talk about that, because it can’t compare with what the school has given us. This is the cradle of our success. Having gone out, some of us remembered the beautiful time we spent here and how much the school contributed to what we have become and been able to achieve today. So, we felt that we must return to give back to the school a little of what it gave us in appreciation.”
Applauding the old pupils’ kind gesture, Rev. Sr. Ibobo enthused: “What they have done is a thing of joy, of great relief. The school would be 60 years in two years’ time and the library has been there yearning for attention and improvement. I was happy when they (Set of ’84) decided to take up the project. Before now, some of them had visited the school, saying they were from Abuja, Lagos, UK, United States. They told me they were proud of the school and would like to help, as they were doing well where they were. I believe everybody who has benefitted from being educated in a school should emulate their example by giving support to their alma-mater.”
The Library Prefect, Marvelous Michael, thanked the school’s benefactors and assured them that she and her fellow pupils would make good use of the facility. The young girl said she was inspired by her predecessors’ gesture and hoped to do the same when she grew up.
The Archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese, Ibadan, Most Rev. Gabriel Adeleke Abegunrin, was represented by the Director of Education in the Archdiocese and a professor of Guidance and counselling at the university of Ibadan, Prof Elizabeth Adenike Emeke on the occasion also attended by Rev. Fr. Michael Domingo, school officials and pupils.