Family of 40 teachers

• Papa Matthew was a teacher, his 12 children and 12 children in-law are. He also has 8 grandchildren teachers
By HENRY UMAHI (umahi@sunnewsonline.com)
Saturday, May 9, 2009

But for the Nwigwe family of Umuezuo, Umuokirika Ekwereazu in Ahiazu Mbaise Local Government Area of Imo State, teaching is a way of life. The family holds a rich tradition in teaching, spanning many generations.








PHOTO: THE SUN PUBLISHING
Living index The truth is whenever you walk into that family and ask for a teacher, you will have over thirty responses – all teachers; husbands of teachers, wives of teachers, fathers of teachers, children of teachers, grandchildren of teachers, and as well brothers and sisters and mothers of teachers who have teacher cousins and are themselves teachers.

Indeed, the family’s achievement in the profession is amazing and deserves golden chapters on the elegant pages of history. In fact, the family has produced about 40 teachers at various levels and generations.

Late Pa Matthew Nwigwe, the patriarch of the family, set the ball rolling in 1921 when he began a teaching career that spanned four and half decades. He retired in 1965.

According to family sources, the job took Pa Nwigwe “to almost all parts of what is now Imo State and beyond including Umuohiagu, Okwukwu, Nkwerre, Amaigbo, Uzoagba, Amuzi Ahiara, Umuhu, Lagwa, Ihitte Ezinihitte, Umuapu, Obinze, Umunoha, Umuoparaoma, Eziagbogu, Otulu, Aguneze, Obodo Ujichi, Lorji, Akpim, Nnarambia and Umuokirika.” Pa Matthew, the grand old teacher and don of a teachers’ clan was born in 1897, Pa Nwigwe passed on in 1987.

Escaping into teaching

Saturday Sun gathered that late Pa Nwigwe’s quest for education was not well received at the time. According to the source, “consequently, he found his way out of his parents’ tight grip to Calabar where his budding desire to go to school blossomed. He returned home from Calabar already a school boy, to the chagrin of his parents and some of his brothers.

The only one to protect his interest and defend him from molestation and near ostracism was his immediate elder brother, Ugochukwu Minahakwu. After a full year of heroic determination close to stubbornness, he was allowed to continue schooling, but not without submitting to such derisive names as ‘onyeumengwu’ (lazy bones), onyeujo oru (one who fears work) and ori-okporo. That was about 1917.”

The vogue then was that able-bodied young men like him accompanied their parents to farms and markets. But he chose to be different, to be his own man, to seek knowledge so that he can bequeath same unto others.

As one of the pioneers of the teaching profession in Mbaise, he was a household name. He was a role model and not a few held him in high esteem. In fact, he made his kinsmen embrace the chalk and blackboard profession.

Interestingly, those he influenced were his children and they decided to follow his footsteps. At last, all but one of his 12 children became teachers. And all of them married teachers, including the ‘black sheep’ of the family, Chief Lucian Nwigwe. Even when his first son, Chief John Nwigwe lost his wife, Cecilia, a teacher, he got married to another teacher, Beatrice, who is currently the headmistress of Community School Eziama, Oparanadim, Ahiazu LGA.

Pa Nwigwe’s surviving children include, Chief John Nwigwe, who retired in 1984 as the pioneer principal of Ime-Onicha Secondary School in Ezinihitte; Dr Clement Nwigwe; Rev. Fr. Professor Boniface Nwigwe of Religious Studies Department, University of Port Harcourt, Rev. Sis. Pepertua Nwigwe, Principal, Regina Pacci’s Secondary School, Abuja, Rose Okoroafor, Rita Igwe, Chief Lucian Nwigwe and Mr. Joseph Nwigwe.

The following have been forced by death to drop their chalk: Mrs Pauline Madu, Chief Mrs. Juliana Anyanwu and Rev. Fr. (Dr) Lambert Nwigwe.

Third generation teachers

Instructively, eight of Pa Nwigwe’s children also became teachers. They include late Lilian Emenalom, who taught at Imo State Polytechnic Owerri, Stella Uba, Edith Ndukuba and Akuchinyere Nwigwe, lecturer, Imo State Polytechnic.

In the same vein, many of his grand children are married to children.

Why the teaching craze

Now, why is teaching the favourite profession of the Nwigwes and their offspring? Is it a matter of choice? What role did the patriarch of the family play in his children’s choice of career?

Offering insightful perspectives into the family’s choice of career, Chief John Nwigwe admitted that it is a function of nature and nurture. According to him, the siblings were not coerced to go into teaching but chose to do so on their own free will.

He explained that due to the exemplary conduct of their father it became natural for them to emulate him, adding that he had no regret whatsoever moulding the character of children as it were. Describing teaching as a noble profession, the 82-year-old man, who was recently celebrated Onyima, said it was a coincidence that they also married teachers.

Speaking with Saturday Sun, late Pa Nwigwe’s granddaughter, Lovelyn, said that being born into a family of teachers is a fascinating experience.

An excitement

Lovelyn, who read Theatre Arts at the University of Calabar, said: “It is amazing, fascinating really. We are a closely-knit family, everybody is teaching everybody at every point in time. Our family members are level headed. I think the biggest advantage of coming from such a family is that everybody is well-informed. Everybody here recognizes the beauty of unrestricted education. It is difficult to see anybody in the entire family in his or her late teens who is not a graduate or already in a higher institution. I wouldn’t exchange the experience with any other.”

She said that on account of the family’s accomplishment in teaching and education in general, the family enjoys a measure of respect and recognition. She posited that it is not impossible for more of the family members to embrace teaching in the future.

Perhaps the Pa Matthew Nwigwe family deserves a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the family with the most number of teachers anywhere. Who says great things don’t exist in Nigeria?

There is a family like this. The man and his wife are doctors, their 8 children doctors and their 5 grand children have joined the band wagon. They all practice in the same clinic their grandparents and parents opened in the 50's. Somebody told me that it's like they cursed this family with medical school. Hello, can any of you do something refreshing and different?

Wud u rather want them to be a "Family of thieves" ?

so what's wrong with being teachers?

The only problem I have with it is you'll be short of cash every so often, but since when did good honest work become a crime?

Idleness sha!

Wud u rather want them to be a "Family of thieves" ?

Is stealing the only other profession one can explore apart from medicine?. I suspect that most members in that family were not called to be doctors. They followed suit because it's a family tradition besides, I 'm not against the family of 40 teachers. They can be 200 million teachers from the same family, I don't care.

Wow, an intellectually wealthy family