Prof Bart Nnaji is globally renowned for his revolutionary innovations in robotics, e-Design and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
He has served as Nigeria’s Power Minister as well as Minister of Science and Technology before the crowning glory of founding Geometric Power.
Not many Nigerians know that Prof Nnaji was once a sports superstar, and actually went to the United States for his education based on a sporting scholarship.
Let me spill it out here that Prof Nnaji was in 1995 inducted into the coveted Hall of Fame of St John’s University, New York.
His distinction in the esteemed St John’s Athletics contingent has been a standout testament of his Class of 1980.
He was a class act as a champion in the American Big East Conference, a collegiate athletic association made up of St John’s University, alongside Connecticut, Georgetown, Creighton, Butler, DePaul, Marquette, Seton Hall, Villanova, Xavier Universities and Providence College etc.
Nnaji was a pivotal school record holder as the all-time first in the men’s indoor long jump event with a leap of 24-6 ¾ feet.
He ranked second in the men’s outdoor triple jump with a leap of 51-6 ½, and ranked third in the men’s indoor triple jump at 49-6 ¼.
The remarkable aspect of Nnaji’s feats in sports is that it was in his last year in secondary school, at St Patrick’s College, Emene, near Enugu, that he started featuring in athletics.
In his words, “I was not an athlete throughout my years at St Patrick’s College, Emene – that is, five years. It was in the fifth year, my last year, that I became an athlete.”
When Nnaji had not started participating in sports in St Patrick’s, the school had its share of representatives in high jump, long jump, triple jump, the sprints, long distance races, and the milers etc.
Nnaji was none of those early on – he was just the school’s Deputy Senior Prefect, and he strictly kept to his duties without partaking of the sporting milieu.
His throwing his hat into the sports ring happened when the school had her Inter-House sports competition.
The many school prefects belonged to different hostels or houses that would compete with one another.
He reckoned that his own hostel was made up of mostly younger children who couldn’t be able to win laurels against the older athletes from the other competing houses.
It’s against this dire background that Nnaji decided to go into the field to compete, and he excelled outstandingly in hurdles, long jump, triple jump and 100 meters.
According to Prof Nnaji, “It’s an incredible courage, I mean, when I think about it now. I think how crazy that was, anyway. So I did compete, and I won the long jump, surprisingly, and triple jump, and I came second in the hurdles, and second in the 100 meters sprint.”
The State Sports Council officials who came to monitor the Inter-House competition took immediate notice of the new star on the block, and invited him to compete at the state’s Sports Festival.
He actively participated, and came second in long jump and took the first position in triple jump, and he was invited to camp in Nsulu Games Village.
Incidentally, it was only when his company, Geometric Power, acquired the Aba Ring Fence that he got to know that that’s where the Nsulu camp actually was.
Back then, Nsulu village hosted virtually all the sports, and Prof Nnaji has this lament today: “These are things that are gone now. That’s why we no longer have good top athletes coming out of Nigeria because we abandoned such things, and only those who are abroad are now able to represent Nigeria, unfortunately.”
It was at Nsulu Games Village that the selected athletes went to camp to prepare for the National Sports Festival.
Bart represented East Central State in long jump and triple jump, thus becoming a national athlete.
It’s noteworthy that after he graduated from secondary school, he got a job in the Sports Council, Enugu, the capital of then East Central State.
He was placed on Salary Grade Level Four, earning 99 Naira per month.
The first thing for him, after the Biafra war, was not about application for admission to Nigerian universities, as such, because he was seeing his co-athletes going abroad, going to America on scholarship.
Being a national athlete who was equally of a good standing academically, Nnaji felt he stood a chance of being recruited by American universities in their drive for the talented champions from Nigeria.
Nnaji got one of such scholarships, but he also had a government scholarship to study abroad.
He had those two scholarships, but when he got to the United States, he relinquished the Nigerian one because it had the attachment that one had to come home to do compulsory services immediately after earning the first degree.
Nnaji needed to get his Master’s and PhD which the Nigerian scholarship would not have allowed him to do – or so he thought at the time.
Being a devoted Catholic, he was quite delighted to be admitted to St John’s University, New York which he knew as the biggest Catholic university in America.
The attestation to Nnaji’s status as an elite state athlete in East Central State comes from no less a personage than the legendary Nigerian goalkeeper Emmanuel Okala, MON, who witnessed Bart’s athletic feats first hand when he, Okala, was manning the goalpost for Enugu Rangers International, the club that rebuilt the morale of the Igbo people to towering heights after the Nigeria-Biafra war: “Bart dusted all the other big athletes almost effortlessly.”
It’s indeed worthy of celebration that one can excel in sports and academics as Prof Nnaji has remarkably done.
As Prof Bart Nnaji celebrates his 70th birthday in fine fettle, it’s cool by me to commemorate his feats as a sports superstar.