A digital resource explaining the roles of the various social systems in risk management

1. Onyekachi’s quest for western eduation.
“Papa I want to go to school,” Onyekachi said, staring to the
ground in an attempt to avert his father’s angry gaze.
“You are a stupid boy,” his father shouted for the umpteenth
time. “Nne, you can hear the rubbish your son is spewing; he
wants to discard the ways of our forefathers to chase after the
White man and his strange God.” His father said to his mother,
pointing at him with disdain.
A smile crossed Onyekachi’s face as he remembered his mother’s
staunch support.
“Papa Onyeka, biko,” his mother said. “Strange things are
happening in our land, let him go and learn?”
And that was how his parents had argued back and forth over his
quest to get educated in the western way. Onyekachi smiled as
his mind wandered over the memory of his sojourn through
school. He remembered how after that argument, his mother had
helped him with some provisions from her farm as he went to live
with the village Parish priest, Father Walter Francis.

2. In those days in Umumma, the village where he was born, no one
wanted to send his child to school or to become a Christian.
Actually, the two meant the same thing; to be educated, one had
to be a Christian because the only school around his village was
missionary established and administered.
Going to live with the parish priest was the first step toward
formal education for Onyekachi . He spent five years and seven
months with the Parish Priest, and within this period he learnt to
read and write. His next quest was to go to college but his parish
was a small and poor one, and couldn’t afford to send him to the
only colonially ran post primary school in his province. It was
either he got a scholarship or his dream of continuing his
education was forfeit. Then fate smiled at him.
It happened that his village Umumma, and a neighbouring village
Umuaka, were embroiled in a land dispute. The dispute was
taken to the courts for adjudication, but unfortunately for
Umumma, Umuaka had an educated man who was the colonial
appointed warrant chief of his province, and with his influence,
Umuaka won the land dispute in court. The elders of Umumma
were bitter over this; the land ancestrally belonged to them yet
they had lost it to Umuaka because they had no educated one in
government from their village.
The elders of Umumma had held a meeting; they wanted to pick
out a child and sponsor through school so that they would also

3. have someone educated in government, but none of the parents
wanted to present his child for this assignment. While the elders
were still contemplating on how to go about this, Onyekachi
happened to walk by.
“Is that not the child of Nze Amanze?” One of the elders asked.
“That should be Onyeka, the one that went to live with the parish
priest because he wants to learn the ways of the white man.”
“Yes he is,” another elder said.
“Why don’t we call him and find out if he would want to go to
school for us so that when he finishes his education, he could go
and work in the government and become our representative
there?” The head of the elder’s council suggested.
The next morning a town crier went round the village to inform
the people that collectors would visit each compound for a token
contribution to sponsor Onyekachi Amanze to learn the white
man’s ways.