Loyola Jesuit College

Loyola Jesuit College
Motto	"Service of God and Others"
Established	1996
Type	Private
Principal	Joe-Stanis Okoye, S.J.
Students	600
Location	Gidan Mangoro, Nigeria
Campus	Urban, 70acres (0.29 km²)
Colors	White and blue
Mascot	Roaring Lion
Website	www.loyolajesuit.org

Loyola Jesuit College is a private co-educational, boarding, Roman Catholic secondary school in Nigeria operated by the Society of Jesus religious order. The school was opened on October 2, 1996, and is named after the Society's founder, St. Ignatius of Loyola. The college is located in Gidan Mangoro on the outskirts of Abuja, Nigeria's capital. The highly selective school has claimed the best West African Examination Council (WAEC) examinations results for the past seven years, as well as the best JAMB results for several of those years, and is thus regarded as the best in West Africa.

It is located in Gidan Mangoro, in Karu, Abuja.^[1][2][3]

History

Loyola Jesuit College opened its gates on October 2, 1996. Funds to construct the school were provided by the Society of Jesus and many benefactors in the United States. The first principal of the school was Jim Kuntz, S.J. He supervised the building of the school facility and served as principal for three years. He was succeeded by O.T. Jonah, S.J. who served for four years in that office. Patrick Ryan, S.J. served as president of the institution during Jonah's term and for two years after. Following Jonah's term, Marc Roselli, S.J. took over as principal for the next three years. During his term, Peter Schineller, S.J assumed the position of president. The next president and principal was John-Okoria Ibhakewanlan (S.J.). On July 17, 2011, during the tenth graduation ceremony, Fr. Ugo Nweke was announced as the next Principal, and Fr. Ehis Omoragbon was announced as the new President.

Deaths of students on Sosoliso Airlines Flight 1145

At first students from Port Harcourt travelled between school and their homes via buses on the roads. Rising crime along roads during the 1990s made parents believe that road travel was too dangerous. In 2001, when Sosoliso Airlines began services between Port-Harcourt and Abuja, parents placed their children on the flights.^[4]

On December 10, 2005, Loyola Jesuit College lost 60 students in Sosoliso Airlines Flight 1145. Among the many students who lost their lives was a family of three siblings and the Head Boy of the school at the time. The crash claimed 107 lives with two survivors. Kechi Okwuchi, a student at Loyola Jesuit, survived the crash. A new multi-purpose auditorium has been built in their memory, called the Memorial Hall.^[5][6]

Kechi was treated in Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa as of 14 December 2005^[7] and at Shriners Hospitals for Children in Galveston, Texas, United States as of 6 September 2007.^[8]

Newsletters from the school can be found on the school's website.

Campus

The LJC campus is located on the outskirts of Abuja. The 70.4-acre (285,000 m²) campus is fenced which ensures the safety of the students. Loyola Jesuit College is equipped with four large classroom and laboratory buildings, three boys dormitory buildings, one girls dormitory building, a chapel, a dining hall, a multi-purpose 'Memorial' hall, and staff quarters. Upon entering the LJC campus via the front gates, a statue of St. Ignatius of Loyola is seen presenting his sword.

The dormitories are Connelly, Loyola, Regis, and Xavier. Connelly is named after Cornelia Connelly, the founder of the Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus. The names of the others come from the Jesuit saints Ignatius Loyola, John Francis Regis, and Francis Xavier.^[9]

Admissions

Loyola Jesuit College is one of the most selective secondary institutions in Nigeria. In the year 2010, 5000 wrote the school entrance exam and LJC accepted 2% of its applicants. Prospective students take a highly competitive entrance examination, after which a percentage of students are screened through interviews. Unlike many schools in Nigeria, Loyola Jesuit College does not accept transfers. It has a policy that ensures that students enter the school at the lowest class.

Loyola Jesuit College is one of the first schools in Nigeria to implement a strictly online application policy. Prospective students both apply online and receive their results online.

Student activities

The college supports dozens of organized student activities. According to the college's website, "Loyola Jesuit College has broad goals for the development of its students: some of those goals are fostered by the academic program, but many of those goals are fostered only outside the classroom, through the school's extracurricular and formational programs".

The school is one of the most noted in the annual Cowbell Mathematics Competition.

Student activities and societies

Most of the groups in Loyola Jesuit College were formed and are run by students of the school.

• The Roar, student magazine, published from the Gidan Mangoro campus since 2000. Editorial Positions are held by students at the school.

• The Loyola Union is a student organization dedicated to keeping the memory of the Sixty angels alive. It produces the annual Loyola Jesuit College drama which include Hopes of the Living Dead by Ola Rotimi, If... a tragedy of the ruled by Ola Rotimi and Hard Ground by Ahmed Yerima

• The Service Programme is a student service organization which is dedicated to helping children in the area of Gidan Mangoro.

• The Prison Journal is a student newspaper that was launched in October 2010 to cover college news. The paper is run by the students of the college.

• The Blue Steel is a soccer tournament in the college. The students take up the names of European clubs and National teams and form teams which play in soccer matches. The current president is Ayanfeoluwa Akoni. The vice president is Obinna Ekwueme. The secretary is Peter Nwaoba. The Current Players' Player of the Year is Obinna Blaise Umeh.

• The Concerned Students International is an advocacy group that was formed after the December 2010 Sosoliso plane crash. The group is hoping to get 60 prominent Nigerians to sign an advocacy commitment to ensuring the future is bright for Nigerians.

• The LJC Band is a group of young prodigies who play different drums during assemblies, ceremonies, inter-school competitions etc.

Notable Graduates

• Emmanuel Bez Idakula , Singer-Songwriter

• Nmachi Jidenma, Founder of blog CP-Africa.com

College Presidents

• Patrick Ryan, S.J, Vice President for Mission and Ministry at Fordham University, 1999-2005
• Peter Schineller, S.J, 2005-2007
• John-Okoria Ibhakewanlan, S.J, 2007-2011
• Ugo Nweke, S.J, - acting President and Principal from August to December 2010.
• Ehis Omoragbon, S.J, 2011-2013
• Emmanuel Ugwejeh,S.J, 2013- Date

Alumni

Loyola Jesuit College is known to be a feeder school to many top universities around the world. Alumni of Loyola Jesuit College have gone on to attend Ivy League colleges in the U.S. such as Princeton University, Harvard University, Yale University, University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, Cornell University,and other institutions such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The Johns Hopkins University, Fordham University, University of Toronto, University of British Columbia, University of Waterloo, Georgetown University, Fairfield University, Boston University, Northeastern University, West Virginia University, Drexel University, Purdue University, Howard University, Illinois Institute of Technology, University of Nottingham, University College London, Stanford University, California Institute of Technology, University of Edinburgh, Cambridge University, Oxford University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Imperial College London, Canisius College, London School of Economics, University of Ibadan, University of Nigeria Nsukka, Obafemi Awolowo University, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, University of Lagos

Notes

External links

• Official Website