Toxic vibes in schools

 There is a toxicity in Nigeria’s educational ecosystem that indexes a deeper malaise needing to be unraveled and remedied. This toxicity has resulted in avoidable deaths – not just among learners but also teachers. Consider some of the latest cases:

Some two weeks ago, a teacher in Delta State was reportedly attacked by a parent, leading to his untimely death. Until the incident, Sunday Ufua was a Physics teacher at Alihame Mixed Secondary School in Agbor, Ika South council area, where the parent allegedly assaulted him for having disciplined his son over reported bad behaviour. Parading the parent, Nnajiofor Nweke, late last week in Asaba, the police in Delta alleged that he flogged Ufua to death in an incident that took place on 18th October. “The suspect went to the school premises aggressively in search of one of the school teachers over punishment meted to his son at the school (and)… on sighting the said teacher, picked a cane in the school and started flogging him during which another teacher, one Ufua Sunday, while trying to mediate and stop him slumped and was rushed to hospital where he was confirmed dead by the doctor,” Delta police command spokesman, Bright Edafe, said at the suspect parade. 

Nweke denied that Ufua died from direct assault by him. He told journalists that he had gone to the school where he enrolled his children to protest the flogging of his 12-year-old son in Junior Secondary School (JSS) 2, and he had left before he got reports that a teacher slumped. He acknowledged, though, that he assayed flogging another teacher with a cane that was lying by on a table, but “one of the teachers advised that l should wait for the principal to report the matter to him. At that time, it was getting to the time for my business, so l left. Later, my daughter called and said the teacher that used to look after them had slumped and l rushed back.”

Before the suspect parade, Delta State Governor Sheriff Oborevwori  described events leading to Ufua’s death as condemnable and avoidable, saying the state government frowned “seriously on parents going to bully teachers for genuinely meting out disciplinary measures against students for bad behaviour such as is alleged in the extant case.” He tasked the state police command to thoroughly investigate the incident and bring culprits to book, adding: “As a state, we will never tolerate actions like this in our schools.”

About the same time as the Delta incident, a JSS 3 pupil in Kaduna State was treated to corporal punishment by school helmsmen that resulted in his death. Marwanu Nuhu-Sambo was allegedly flogged on 20th October by the school principal, vice-principal and some prefects of Al-Azhar Academy, a private secondary school in Zaria, until he gave up the ghost. He was reportedly disciplined for absenting himself from school. The police in Kaduna confirmed arrest of the principal and vice-principal, with more arrests on the way; while the school board shuttered the academy following the incident.

Marwanu’s relations said the lad had stopped going to school upon being asked to repeat his class after failing the promotional exam. “He was taken back to the school by one of his uncles and handed over to the school principal, who vowed to punish him for absconding. It was after the uncle left that teachers engaged the late Marwanu in serious beating, to the extent that they broke his tooth and later killed him,” a sister to the boy was reported saying. She further alleged that the boy’s body was abandoned near the school toilet till closing hours, when the school management rushed him to a nearby hospital only to be told he had died. Another relation said the beating indeed started soon as Marwanu was handed to the principal, who staged relay flogging of the lad with the vice-principal. The boy was thereafter taken to the assembly ground where he was further flogged in the presence of other students. “He was again taken to the principal’s office and flogged again, upon which he attempted to runaway but was prevented from doing so by the school prefects,” the relation said, adding: “He was beaten to the extent that he lost some of his teeth, and then went into a coma and subsequently lost his life.”

“The vibes of bestial violence in schools are displacing the culture of decency that ideally should characterise that ecosystem.”

Confirming the arrest of the principal and vice-principal, the police in Kaduna indicated that investigations showed Marwanu was subjected to merciless beating involving more than 100 strokes of the cane. Police command spokesman, Mansir Hassan, said: “At the assembly, the principal ordered that Marwanu be given 105 strokes of the cane. Thereafter, they took him to the office, removed his clothes and trousers and continued beating him with sticks on the head and back and his body. The principal later handed him over to the school prefects who continued beating him with sticks until one of his teeth fell off. It was at that point that the deceased went into coma.” The police spokesman added: “But instead of rushing him to hospital, the prefects brought him out and dumped his body in the school premises near the male toilets until closing time. Cries from other students in the school who watched in trepidation reportedly attracted other teachers, who rushed to the scene where they found that the boy had given up the ghost.”

The school board, in a statement, denounced the incident, saying the punishment served on Marwanu was not part of the school’s policy, and that the officers who imposed “the irresponsible punishment did so without consultation.” It stated that the affected officers had been suspended from the school forthwith and handed over to the police for investigation and further action, adding: “Finally, the school is closed for academic activities till further notice.”

And in Ebonyi State, a school principal and a teacher were gruesomely murdered by hoodlums at Nkaleke, Ebonyi council area. It was reported that the suspected assassins arrived at Nkaleke Echara Community Secondary School, Ojiegbe, on 13th October in a tricycle and shot dead the principal, Simon Ominyi, and a teacher, Moses Nwibo. Insider accounts said the hoodlums pretended as if they were on a genuine mission and inquired about the principal’s office from someone, who led them some distance  away and pointed out the office. But shortly after, they began shooting sporadically. “Immediately the assassins found their way into the principal’s office, they ordered the man and his guests to lie down and Mr. Ominyi, sensing danger, complied without hesitation. But in spite of the principal’s plea and non-resistance to their order, they still shot him to death on the spot,” a source was reported saying. After pumping bullets into the 50-year-old principal, the hoodlums also cut down the school teacher. The incident created tension in the area, making students and teachers to flee the school and residents the adjoining community. 

The police in Ebonyi confirmed the incident, saying investigation had begun to track down the killers. Meanwhile, organised labour protested the killings. “It is very bad for a sane man or woman to kill a teacher, who only works with chalk and pen. We condemn the act. The cane we are using is just to correct the schoolchildren,” state chairman of the Nigeria Union of Teachers, Francis Okorie, said. His counterpart for Trade Union Congress, Chidi Igboji, said it was a “shameful act” to kill teachers.

The vibes of bestial violence in schools are displacing the culture of decency that ideally should characterise that ecosystem. There is a vicious mode taking over component groups – teachers, students, parents and other outsiders having a beef with system insiders. Even school owners are not exempt, going by the fate of five-year-old Hanifa Abubakar who was kidnapped and murdered in January 2022 by Abdulmalik Tanko, proprietor of the school where she was enrolled for early childhood education. And we now know that students are potential lynch mobs. Final year Civil Engineering student at Obafemi Awolowo University, Okoli Ahinze, was beaten to death by a student mob last April for allegedly stealing a phone.

It isn’t that there are ready answers here as to possible underlying reasons for this horrible trend. But there are sufficient indications of pent-up frustration within the school ecosystem finding expression in bursts of aggression. Is it the prevailing state of the socio-economy de-egging the heads, or is it the general curricula losing depth in inculcating civility? Sociologists and educationists should help to interrogate.