No, I was not bullied at LEA Primary School, Okeagi. I was not bullied at ECWA Secondary School, Mopa – thanks to my late Grandmother, Madam Abigail Arupe Sani. She apprenticed me to Uncle Jide Gbafo who took me under his charge and prevented those wicked seniors piling all their phychembio books on my head as we walked to school.
Okay, I know you are wondering what phychembio (pronounced fi-kem-bao) is. It’s short for physics, chemistry and biology books.
So, I escaped bullying – doxology.
My three children were sent to different schools in Jos. The eldest was at Uni. We could barely afford the fees but while some were buying plots and building houses, we believed we were building the lives of these little ones.
We made sure they lacked nothing. We bought them as much provision as would last them the term and augmented during school visits.
We slept well, believing they were having fun and learning. We could have sent them to Jos Prison. Imagine the shock of our lives when we learnt lately just reminiscing with them that our children were stripped of their provisions almost the moment we turned our backs. Their seniors and some of their minders would chase my daughter from her bed and make her serve punishments only known to slavery books. They threatened them not to tell.
On holidays, these children looked gaunt, but we attributed that to shedding teenage fat and the rigours of separation from their parents. We had sent our sheep to packs of wolves. Our younger daughter reported that one of her bullies had the audacity to send her a friendship request on social media.
If we fail to eradicate this horror, we would give birth to an abnormal society.
Our son said bullying continued until he started “beating up people” in retaliation. Still, he kept that from us knowing I would have punished him severely for bullying others not knowing he was retaliating for what would have been done to him.
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I just asked Meta AI to analyze the result of bullying and it itemized ten common effects – from anxiety and depression to low self-esteem and suicidal thoughts. Social isolation, substance abuse, eating disorders, sleep disturbances, difficulty with emotional regulation and academic underachievement.
Bullying affects the bullied for their entire lives and result in serious mental health issues. It transforms otherwise gentle children into monsters. It erodes self-confidence and trust in humanity and forces the bullied into a complete opposite of their natural self. It has turned many into social misfits. This is one of the plagues of the Nigerian private and public school system that requires serious attention.
I don’t know how we could tackle it, but maybe having dedicated lines where children who are bullied could report in anonymity, get their allegations investigated and perpetrators punished followed by strong counseling is a way.
I had trouble sleeping after watching the clip of the poor girl being slapped left, right and center by her peers. It is not bad that the school was closed but methinks a 3-day school closure is a slap on the wrist. The school should be closed for as long as it takes for its proprietors and administrators to put appropriate measures to make recurrence impossible.
Teachers, hostel uncles and aunties and proprietors must take a level of accountability for what goes on in their schools. We left our treasures in their hands. If a bank manager mismanages our funds, we sue them and send them to jail. NDIC repays us for the loss. The lives of our young children should mean more to us than our money and chattels especially since parents are gouged to put these children away. There should be national recognition for schools that do well in coaching and caring and for seniors that show exemplary conduct and protection of juniors.
While it may be too late to ask that public schools be fixed so that they become the primary molders of our tomorrow; we can do better supervision of private schools charging exorbitantly while reneging in their duties to the children in their charge. If we fail to eradicate this horror, we would give birth to an abnormal society.
I pray that the poor girl gets the counseling she needs. I hope that her parents relocate her somewhere safe and sound with recourse to psychological counselling and all the mental health aid she’d need to outgrow her trauma. We must remember that she is just lucky that her case came to the limelight, she is smaller than a drop in the ocean of the brigandage arraigned against our children in most private schools. As a society, we should demand better.
