By Ingram Osigwe
Twenty years ago when they were leaving the University of Nigeria, Enugu campus Medical School as greenhorns in the medical field, a group of the then fresh young medical doctors who would later congregate under the banner of Lynx 95 never probably knew that they would one day unwittingly draw inspiration from the late Catholic Pontiff, Pope John Paul 11, who said, “No man has so much that he has nothing to receive and no man has so little that he has nothing to offer”. And the late Mother Theresa who admonished: “Let no one come to you without leaving better and happier”.
Twenty years down the line, the group has reunited. And as part of the 20-year re-union activities, the 1995 class of the College of Medicine of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, recently gave back to the school, their Alma Mater that made them. In doing that, Lynx 95, apart from living through Pope John Paul 11 and Mother Theresa’s immortal words on marble, also followed in the tradition of UNN Alumni which sometimes ago raised N24.5 million to help the institution upgrade teaching facilities and hostels.
Thus in what could be viewed as its widow’s mite to the school, Lynx 95 apparently brought Malcom Bane’s proposition that “If you wait until you can do everything for everybody, instead of something for somebody, you will end up doing nothing for nobody”, to bear on its decision to donate a 40 KVA solar power system to the new 120-room medical students hostel.
The 1995 set of UNN medical graduates have also renovated the lecture theatre at Ituku Ozalla, new site of the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, UNTH. In addition, Lynx95 equally changed roof, ceilings, broken windows, refurbished electrical connections and fixtures, repainted the edifice, repairing the plumbing materials and installing an overhead water tank.
The epoch formal handing over of the Lynx 95’s donations and infrastructural rehabilitation in the school took place on Friday, August 5, 2016. The Provost of the Faculty of Health Sciences, Professor Ernest Onwasigwe; the Dean of College of Medicine, Professor Ezegui Hyginus; the immediate past Dean of the College, Professor Uchenna Nwagha, among other high ranking academics of the institution were on hand to grace the commission the Lynx 95 projects.
Lynx 95 lined up a number of activities to mark its 20th re-union week. These included morning walk and heart healthy breakfast as well as a charity visit and donation to a motherless babies home. Lynx 95 also organised a mentoring session with final medical students and later a re-union dinner. The re-union week was capped with an inter-denominational service on Sunday August 7th.
Lynx 95 shares Albert Einstein’s view that “ Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile” and late Muhammed Ali’s believe that “ service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth”, hence it gave back to the very school that molded its members.
Ingram Osigwe wrote from Lagos.