By Ethelbert Okere
Like most missionary schools established in the colonial era, Holy Ghost College, Owerri came in 1949 with a motto coined in Latin: Recta Sapere, which, translated into English literally means “To Judge Rightly” or “To Think Rightly”.
Apparently because of the fascination of the Latin language which was a leading subject in the college — as in many other secondary schools — in those days, it is most likely that many of its students stopped only at the Latin version without bothering to find out its meaning in the more common English language. I passed through the college in 1974/75 for my High School Certificate (HSC) before proceeding for higher studies –after Lower Six– but I must confess that I cannot remember if I ever asked for the English meaning of the motto.
It is , therefore, possible that several other alumnus of the college might have similarly passed out just contended with that elegant Latin phrase, Recta Sapere, without going further to think deeply of its English version : To Think or Judge Rightly.
Holy Ghost College Owerri has a formidable alumni who can be found in nearly every field of endeavor doing quite well. It has an Old Boys Association made up of members have worked tirelessly ,over the years, to ensure that their Alma Mater retains its pride of place as a citadel of knowledge. The association has been unrelenting in its efforts at ensuring that infrastructural decay, which is the bane of the educational sector in our clime, takes a minimal toll on the school, once the dream of every boy of secondary school age in the then East Central state. Through the various sets, the old boys association has contributed to the upgrading of physical infrastructure – water, intra school roads, playing grounds, classroom blocs etc to the extent that today, it is hardly believable that the college is already 75 years old.
The association holds an annual re-union during which it commissions projects executed either by individual members or any of the sets. In 2024, the association held a grand union to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the college. Among the highlights of the event was the ground breaking of the association’s secretariat on the college premises.
This year’s (2026) re-union was, however, epoc-making as it saw the opening of a N500 million AI and ICT center on the college premises built by one of the old boys, Tech tycoon, Leo Stan Ekeh, Chairman of ZINOX Technologies, Africa’s number one Tech enterprise. The commissioning took place on Sunday, May 24 , 2026 after a Mass presided over by the Catholic Archbishop of the Owerri Ecclesiastical Province, The Most Reverend Lucius Ugorji. Although Ekeh had undertaken similar projects in about 123 schools in Nigeria, the Holy Ghost College project is unique because it harbours both an ICT center and AI center and the first of its kind in the part of Nigeria that used to be known as the Eastern region, that is, the area known today as the Southeast and Southsouth geo-political zones put together.
But perhaps what sets the center further aside is that unlike similar gestures by other well-meaning Nigerians, it is not politically motivated. Said Ekeh at the commissioning ceremony. “The AI-ICT project is not a political project because I am not a politician even though I have big friends in politics. It is something straight from my heart. It’s something I am so passionate about as part of my candid philanthropic gestures of advancing humanity through improved knowledge and services”.
Eke disclosed to the gathering that he personally supervised the building of the center from the beginning to the end: “…I supervised it from block laying up to the finishing, “he told the gathering. But he is not done yet. “From now to December, I will refurbish one of the schools dormitories into an ultra-modern students’ hostel. I will put light and other facilities there. I will equally furnish it with beds and mattresses”, he said. That is not all.Leo Stan told his audience that he “will put students with high intelligence quotient in that dormitory in order to make others jealous and aim at being a beneficiary …”
Chief Ekeh further disclosed that he will pay teachers for extra mural classes for all the SS3 students of the school. “From September this year, the school teachers will be getting a token every month from my Foundation as a motivational encouragement. By 2027, the student that records the best result in SS3 in Holy Ghost College Owerri will have an all expenses paid trip with his parents to Lagos. I will accommodate him and his parents and they will travel in my private jet. That child will work in our company for one week and he will be specially paid for that week”.
Continuing, Ekeh said, “I will send some money to retrain the teachers in Holy Ghost College. I will send one AI instructor to spend one week in Holy Ghost College.” Still, it is not only in his Alma Mater that Leo Stan is doing his philanthropic work.He has extended similar gestures to Sacred Heart Secondary School in Obowo and currently building four two-bedroom houses for teachers and one three-bedroom structure for the principal of a secondary school in the Ideato South local government area of Imo state. Concluding, Ekeh said “I am not a politician, I am not looking for votes, my prayer is that Imo state should go viral in technology advancement. What I am doing is not for political reasons …”
The May 24, 2026 event in Owerri may be described as a continuation of what began last February when Chief Ekeh turned 70 years of age. On his birthday, February 2, 2026, he unvieled a scholarship scheme for 1,000 indigent Nigerian students studying Computer Science, Computer Engineering and other computer related courses. The scheme is across the country but Imo indigenes are expected to benefit from it. This is apart from his Leo Stan Ekeh Foundation’s Entrepreneurship centers in three Nigerian Universities including the Imo State University. In the last two years, the IMSU center has graduated over 200 young men and women as the first batch of beneficiaries of the programme. The trainees at the IMSU center were taught skilsl in entrepreneurship by experts drawn from Nigeria as well as the United State and the United Kingdom.
Leo Stan is also involved in the Imo State government Skill-Up programme to which he has made huge cash donations. His group, ZINOX, has offered employment to a good number of graduates of the scheme. At the wegraduation of the second batch of the 15,000 trainees in September 2023, the organization presented each graduate with a brand new ZINOX or HP laptop equipped with cutting-edge specifications for high performance.
In a previous article entitled ,LEO STAN: AS CONSTANT AS AN IMO STAR (February 2026), I had pointed out that in spite of Leo Stan’s national and international exploits,he has remained a “home boy”. The article was written after he bagged the award of Distinguished Star of Imo State (DSI) at a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the creation of the state last February. In the article, I had argued that Ekeh’s Imo kinsmen did not have to go far in search of inputs to qualify him for the award because his “tech saviness are very much seen, felt and smelt among his people in Imo”.
The event of May 24, 2026 in Owerri merely underscores that point i was trying to make in that article. Returning to one’s secondary school alma mater after about fifty years to put up such a gargantuan facility for the development of the younger generation is no mean feat. At the event under reference Ekeh said: “I passed through this school and the school also passed through me…” There can be no better testament to the above statement than what the entire world, not just the old boys of Holy Ghost College, witnessed that day.
Leo Stan Ekeh passed through a college whose motto, as we have earlier seen,is “Recta Sapere”, and which as we have also earlier explained , means “To Think Right”. In other words, he is a living, breeding proof of that motto: Thinking Right, a shining evidence that the fouders of the college were right in settlling for that motto.So we say to him, “Leo Stan , You Are Living Up To The Dreams Of The Fouders Of Our Alma Mater.
