Three Brilliant Unizik Doctors Win OCI Prize in Pathology
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In a most fitting way, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State, has sent-forth three fresh, young doctors to begin their medical career with excellence and represent it as worthy products and ambassadors of the institution, which continues to win global academic laurels.
Just like the students he trained, Dr Felix Emeka Menkiti, who previously served as the Head of the Department of Histopathology and Anatomic Pathology as well as Forensic Medicine of Nnamdi Azikiwe University is understandably happy with their excellent performance. At present, he is the Sub-Dean of Students Affairs, CHS, NAU, Nnewi and Consultant Pathologist at NAUTH, where he is actively involved in training medical students, overseeing the students welfare, patient care, teamwork, and continuous professional development.
Through his current position as Sub Dean, he liaises with OCI Foundation in matters relating to the Pathology Prize while also applying the knowledge and skills acquired over the years, to contribute meaningfully to healthcare delivery and capacity building.
The three doctors, Dr Judith Onyinye Okoye, Dr David Uzoechi and Dr Victor Kenechukwu Anago, won the 2025 OCI Foundation Prize in Pathology.
Okoye took the first prize with a cash reward of N200,000. Uzoechi got the second prize with N150,000 while Dr Anago got the third prize and N100,000 cash reward.
With a pretty face, light chocolate complexion and a curvy figure, Okoye is the kind of lady eulogised in the Igbo song, “Adanma, nwanyi nwere shape Coca-Cola.” Without her stethoscope, which is seen holding in the picture, her hair swept down to frame the face and fall on the shoulders, and wearing the beautiful dress with pump sleeves, Okoye could be mistaken for a Nollywood diva.
Fortunately, she is not the typical millennial female who lives on Twitter and Instagram. She has no time or the presence of mind to waste precious, intellectually beneficial minutes, twerking on TikTok. What for, when she is not chasing clicks and likes?
Rather, Okoye is a rock solid female millennial, who also got a Distinction in Surgery, once again beating the boys and emerging the best in Surgery. What a double barrel achievement!
The Pathology Prize was established by an alumnus of the university, Associate Prof Onyebuchi Chris Ifediora, who currently lectures at Griffiths University, Queensland, Australia.
It is noteworthy that Ifediora, during his days at Unizik had also won the overall best result in Pathology. After specialising and becoming successful in Family Medicine, Ifediora set up OCI Foundation as the platform for realizing his burning desire to support brilliant secondary and university students with scholarship awards, to enable them pursue academic excellence. The foundation has been engaged in this for almost 10 years. Having become deeply entrenched in awarding academic scholarships to brilliant but indigent students, he decided to sponsor the Pathology Prize in his alma mater.
In an interview, Okoye, who attended Federal Government College, Enugu, before proceeding to Unizik, said she exclaimed, “Wow!” when she first learnt that she had won the OCI Pathology Prize.
In her journey, Okoye survived the major setback of losing her loving father, leaving her pained that he did not live to witness her become a doctor.
Notwithstanding this, she enthused to Sunday Sun that she is taking away sweet memories from Unizik as she embarks on the medical career.
She said: “I have sweet memories of doing things I felt I could not, and surviving when it felt impossible. It will be very helpful in my medical career. For example, I lost my dad a week after my matriculation. At some point, I felt I couldn’t make it through, since he was my sole sponsor but here I am, a doctor!
“In my final year, I was scared that I would fail surgery because someone close to me failed surgery, but I got a distinction in Surgery and was the best student in Surgery.
“I learnt to trust myself and to trust God! I learnt that I can do anything so long as I believe it and giving up was never an option!
“Again, I am taking away the sweet memory of having very good teachers as well as the friends and colleagues that I met while in school.”
Despite winning the first prize in pathology, and noting that it is “a very good specialty” and that she loves most aspects of pathology, Okoye doesn’t see herself specializing in it in future. And for no particular reason anyway. For her, being the baby of the family (three males, three females, including herself) came with several benefits, top among which was the fact that her senior siblings doted on her and gave her unstinting support all through the journey in medical school.
Parents’ sacrifices not in vain
These days, pain and sadness fill the heart of Dr. David Uzoechi, each time he hears of fresh atrocities committed by the murderous, marauding terrorists killing people and sacking farming communities in Niger State. His pain is relatable: Uzoechi attended Government Secondary School Minna, Niger State, now known as Father O’Connell Science College, Minna, Niger State.
From very humble beginnings, Uzoechi now has a good starting point to begin the process of lifting up his family when he gets into full professional practice after further studies. His mother is a primary school teacher while the father is an automobile electrician. With focus and determination, and acting like a tag team in the International Wrestling Federation matches shown on television, his parents worked hard and sacrificed their comfort to pay his tuition through school.
It is against this background that the enormous joy in his heart can best be appreciated: the sacrifices of his parents were not in vain. Uzoechi honkered down, put his shoulder to the heavy boulder of studying the countless large volume books medical students read (like Grays Anatomy and many others), he mustered all his strength and pushed obstacles out of his way, on the journey to success.
Talking about his parents, Uzoechi said: “Nonetheless, even though they are not in the healthcare profession, their approach to their work has been exemplary to me. My mum (Mrs. Francisca Uzoechi) taught me the value of truly understanding what I learn, because only what is understood can be clearly explained or passed on. My dad (Mr. Chuks Uzoechi), through his work, taught me to be meticulous, because just like a small fault in a car’s wiring system can affect the entire way it functions, attention to detail matters and makes all the difference even in encounters a doctor has with his/her patients.”
Having won a prize in pathology, is he considering specialising in it in the future, we sought to know? His response: “I genuinely thought I would have a definitive answer to this by now, but I recognise that my interests are still evolving.
“While pathology has been fundamental in shaping how I understand disease, I am not yet certain that I would specialise in it. I do have a strong inclination toward Cardiothoracic and Neurosurgery where a deep understanding of Anatomy, Physiology and Pathology essentially determines patient outcomes.
“I also have a keen interest in research, unraveling the mysteries behind diseases that still confuse and remain unexplained. Those questions that Robbins would explicitly state that ‘the pathogenesis is unknown.’ But how could one ever advance humanities’ understanding of a disease if that person does not fully grasp what the current literature says about that disease?
“So you see, regardless of the specialty or interests I will ultimately pursue, my training in pathology will remain central to my clinical reasoning and decision-making.”
Jocularly, he disavows that he is not the first child of his family: “Nahh, I’m not the first child. That’s Uzoechi Jude, my elder brother. Uzoechi David, MD, is the second child in a monogamous setting of five children: three males and two females. All alive and well. Also, both parents are hale and hearty (sorry, forgive the Paediatrics pun, I just couldn’t help it).
“Interestingly, my younger brother, Anthony, and younger sister, Victoria, have shared with me their plans to pursue medicine, a plan I think I might have subtly but unconsciously inspired. Medicine can be quite demanding, and jealous too, and I never fail to tell them this. But if it’s a journey they have chosen to take then, they have my full support. It would be pretty easier for them, having a template they can always make reference to. Maybe one day, they too would win the OCI Foundation prize, who knows?
“Overall, within my family, we’ve learned to support one another, following in the footsteps of my parents who have been doing so for nearly 30 years of their marriage. For me, besides them, I have another model, my elder brother. And in a sense you could say “I follow him as he follows them” (Oops…, another pun there, from the Bible, this time). It’s my prayer that Evelyn and my other siblings can proudly (just as I have) say the same about me.
Recalling the first time he came face to face with a cadaver, Uzoechi said: “It was an evening, though I can no longer remember the exact day. Like most of my classmates, I went to the dissection hall to see the freshly donated cadavers we had been told to familiarise ourselves with before formal dissections began. As I stepped inside, my sense of smell reached the room before my eyes did. The sharp, overwhelming scent of formalin filled the air. It was strong, unfamiliar, and unsettling.
“When my eyes finally adjusted, I saw them: lifeless bodies laid out on elevated platforms, eerily still, almost as though they had been placed on altars prepared for sacrifice. The scene reminded me of moments from Nollywood films. For a brief moment, I was afraid. I hesitated going in, lest one of them reached out for me (I know, I know, I have a crazy imagination).
“Eventually, I gathered my courage, and then walked further in. This time, I actually “saw” them beyond “looking” at them. Slowly, my fear began to fade. In its place came curiosity. Questions began to form almost instinctively. Who were they? What lives had they lived before they ended up in NAU’s Anatomy dissection lab? Why had their families not claimed them? I noticed a cut on the face of one of them and wondered how it had happened. I realised there were no female cadavers and questioned why.
Somewhere deep down, I also felt a quiet pity for them. I had heard that many cadavers eventually end up as bones after dissection, taken home by medical students for study. This man, I realised, would never be buried.
“Looking back, it was those questions, the emotions, the curiosity, and the desire to understand the human body that helped me find my composure. They shifted my focus from fear to an actual purpose. I remember the first time I saw the brachial plexus in the axilla. As I stepped closer to examine it, I completely forgot that I was standing beside a corpse. In that moment, awe replaced fear, and the zeal to learn overwhelmed everything else.”
Running through medical school has been an exhilarating experience for him, which he casts this way: “Ah, my time as a medical student was quite the adventure and in that adventure, I like to think that I discovered myself: my strengths, limitations (most of which I’m working on), and made meaningful connections and relationships.
One would say I was pretty much everywhere. But nahh, don’t be deceived, I was not the “extrovert” though.
“I was “Cisco” to my classmates, and most of my senior colleagues and “Chief Cisco” to my juniors who now insist on calling me Dr. Cisco. What was Chief Cisco’s leadership position in school? Well, in the Federation of Catholic Medical and Dental Students Association (FECAMDS) Cisco was the Pre-Clinical Coordinator between 2020-2021 and the School Academic Secretary from 2024-2025. In the Christian Medical and Dental Association he held the Class Academic Secretary position in 2025. In the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Medical Students Association, NAUMSA, I was the 28th Director of Academics in 2023/2024 and later became the Attorney General of the 29th Administration in 2024/2025.
Within the same MSA, I really enjoyed pathology, and in the school’s Pathology Club, I was an active member and then the club’s 8th Secretary, a position I also held in 2024.
“I enjoyed research and teaching and eventually found a role as the Training Coordinator 2 of the Nigerian Medical Students Association (NiMSA) Research Committee in that same year.”
Winning the OCI Foundation Pathology Prize is for Uzoechi a milestone which he would always remember: “Beyond the surface recognition, it prompted a deep personal reflection on how far I have come, from that young medical student still finding his footing.
“I remember the long hours in NAUTH Old Final Year Hostel, a textbook sprawled open in front of me, pen in hand, trying to make sense of complex disease processes that stared back at me from whatever material laid in front of me. I would read, pause, visualise, and sometimes even act out what I had just learned. Those moments were not glamorous or easy, but they were formative
“This award is more than a validation of those moments, it is both an encouragement and a reminder. It is an encouragement to keep learning with the same curiosity, discipline, and humility that shaped them, and to continue building a strong foundation for the doctor I continue to grow into. A reminder to trust God and the process He’s taking me through and to treasure that journey, as most times, the outcomes we see are a product of long hours of dedication and commitment that go unseen.”
‘The world will always pay for solutions’
We posed a simple question to the third prize winner, Dr Victor Kenechukwu Anago, who attended Laureatefield Montessori School, and sought to know what he would tell the SS2 and SS3 students of his former school if he were invited to address them on the assembly ground now that he has qualified as a doctor and also won the OCI Foundation pathology prize.
What would he say to encourage and make them to understand that school is not scam as many young people seem to believe and are simply focused on making money by any means?
His response is epic: “I understand the sentiment when young people say ‘school na scam.’ I see the economic pressure and the allure of fast wealth. But let’s look at it from a different perspective. Everyone can strive to make money, with or without school. Money is just a medium of exchange. But education transforms you from someone who just consumes wealth into someone who solves problems for humanity.
“When you only focus on making it by any means, your value is tied entirely to your bank account. If the money disappears, your value disappears. You become a consumer of what others have built.
“But when you commit to the process of education, something internal changes. You aren’t just looking for where the money is; you are looking for where the need is.
“The world will always pay for solutions. If you focus on making money by any means, you might get a car today, but you’ll be obsolete tomorrow. But if you focus on becoming a problem-solver through education, the world will not only pay you, it will respect you and seek you out, and it will never be able to call your journey a scam.”
Though pathology introduced him to the clinical side of medicine, Anago is not really considering a career in pathology.
His words: “It gave me the why behind every symptom and the logic behind every disease. But even before gaining admission to study medicine, my vision has always been to be at the front lines of intervention and my sight has always been fixed on a particular destination:surgery.”
The interest in surgery is understandable, when you consider the tale of his first contact with a cadaver: “I wouldn’t say I was scared, but I was definitely shocked at first. It’s a significant moment when you realize that the diagrams in your textbooks are now a human reality in front of you. With subsequent exposure, the shock faded and was replaced by a sense of curiosity. I got used to it because at the time I realized that the anatomy lab was the first real place I could truly learn the intricacies of the human body and put theory into practice. Also knowing I was aspiring to be a surgeon, I knew I had to develop the emotional discipline and steady hands required for the job.”
Anago is the last born of the monogamous family of four children; three males and one female. Though he did hold leadership position in the Nigeria Medical Students Association,
NiMSA, he held positions in the Nigerian Federation of Catholic Students (NFCS) and Federation of Catholic Medical and Dental students (FECAMDS).
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