EAGLE EYE with YVONNE
One of the major obstacles to education is school bullies. These sets of students derive joy by inflicting pain on others, especially those weaker than them. Another category feel stronger, powerful or superior only when they use their authority as senior to inflict pain physically or psychologically on a younger person who is usually their junior.
In Nigeria, there are various types of bullies who operate in schools to make the school environment a hated place for many students. There are the ones who welcome one to boarding school with beatings claiming to remove the first timers’ tail( fresher’s tail). This usually happens the same night one arrives at school, very late in the night.
“The day I arrived at school as a Form one student in a government school, it was my happiest day. I wanted so much to experience being independent that I never thought there was something negative about secondary school. I had to learn the hard way.
“Late that very night, all freshers were ordered out of their bed by a huge looking senior. Sleepily, we lined up, thinking it was all part of being in secondary school. Without warning, the senior girl brought out a cane with which she gave each one of us, 3 swipes of the cane on our buttocks. She claimed to be removing our tail which was the only acceptable way to welcome us into the fold. It was a terrible experience that has become a very terrible memory associated with secondary school”, Lydia Danladi shared her experience.
On her part, Irene P told her horrid story where those her parents entrusted her to, ended up making her life hell. Her bed bunk partner collected her new mattress and gave Irene one that was as flat as dead slippers. She also collected all her new uniforms and gave her her old ones sown in every direction with different types of thread to hold the loose edges together.
Irene started hating school her first night in school. She didn’t sleep well because the mattress and pillow hers was exchanged for. The senior also collected all her provisions claiming to keep them save for Irene. But she said that was the last time she saw her provisions. She was left to starve. This girl who said she was just 11 years, began the long and tedious journey of self discovery. “ I developed an aversion to school which almost ruined me,” she pointed out.
Discussing the reasons why they hated school, some girls who attended a girls government secondary school in the state told of how they used to hide in the ceiling to dodge wicked seniors. The lady said she could not count the number of times she slept even on trees, preferring the danger posed by snakes than venomous seniors. Add all this to total darkness due to lack of electricity.
What was she running from? One may wonder. The seniors used to beat them at the slightest provocation. One could be sent to fetch water from the stream which was very far but was the only source of water for the students. One could be asked to go and look for milk, garri and sugar or suffer punishment. In some cases, one would be asked to wash the school toilets which was one’s nightmare, this lady disclosed. She said the condition, stench and maggots were the worst she had ever experienced.
A boy said in his own case, he was made to pay for his first cousin’s sins. Since the day he arrived and the senior discovered he was related to a senior he claimed dealt with him,every day after lights – out, he would report at the seniors bedside where he would kneel down till around 2:00 am in the morning. Afterwards, he would sleep on a bare bed frame because the senior had seized his mattress and pillow. This continued for more than a week until the Form one student fell very ill and somehow, the cat was let out the basket. The senior was expelled but the young boy refused to go back to the school. It took the grace of God to enroll him in another school.
The cases are inexhaustible. There are subtle cases. One has heard a case where a junior was asked to always bring his piece of meat to a particular senior or else, face the consequences. He did just that until the senior graduated.
The problem is that even when the school authority knows about it, it turns the other way. They allow bullying to thrive for whatever reasons, forgetting that a number of students have opted out of school because of school bullying.
In my estimation, school bullies deserve capital punishment because they are enemies of education like Boko Haram.
What would you say about a senior student who humiliated a bed wetter who was sleeping on the upper bunk and he was on the lower bed. The younger student’s head was pushed into the toilet seat, and he took in all the smell for up to 20 or more minutes to the joy of some wicked seniors. It took the grace of God for the junior student to regain his self esteem.
Or a senior who made junior students roll on the dirty toilet floor which was full of maggots and smelled like hell. And for what? Noise making in class. Some of these students are just too damn wicked.
Until secondary schools begin to deal decisively with bullies that abound in schools, we would always have school dropouts.
