A Head Teacher in Warri South Local Government Area of Delta State, Mrs. Patience Mene, has raised the alarm over her pupils’ habit of smoking Indian hemp.
She said the pupils, taking a cue from hoodlums who had vandalised and looted the school’s PVC ceilings, ceiling fans and other facilities, had learned to wrap and smoke Indian hemp.
Speaking to journalists in Warri, Mene said the hoodlums usually attacked and terrorised the school on a daily basis.
Worried Meme said “We are not safe in this school.”
“When we come in the morning, we see them (hoodlums) around smoking Indian hemp.
“It is not a very good thing because our children copy them. When they are even in the class, they imitate how the hoodlums smoke.
“We try to tell them that they should not copy them that doing so could make them go mad.
“It is not a good thing. So, they should stop it. They should always emulate good things.”
Mene decried the decrepit state of the school, noting that there were a lot of problems confrontong the school which include, flooding and insecurity.
“There is no gate. The school is not fenced. We also have problem of sign board. There is no signboard.
“We need signboard to be fixed at strategic positions so that people will know that there is a school here.
“People don’t know that there is a school here because it is a hidden place,” she lamented.
While stating that the school had a total of 160 pupils, Mene said the flooding problem was responsible for the incessant withdrawal of pupils from the school by parents.
She appealed to the Delta State government to make the school environment conducive for teaching and learning.
In the same vein, the Assistant Head Teacher of the School, Mrs. Caroline Ezeachi, who corroborated the claims of her boss, appealed for assistance from the Delta State government.
A stroll round the school premises substantiated their complaints as hoodlums did not only vandalise and stole facilities from the school, they also heniously defecate in the classrooms.
Besides, the roofs of some of the classrooms had been blown off while residents living around the school dumped their waste indiscriminately in the premises.
It was also noticed that some of the classrooms had been abandoned while the occupants had been evacuated to Igbudu Primary School, opposite Delta Line in Warri, where they now take lessons.
Scores of the pupils who spoke to journalists decried the decrepit state of the school, saying they had no choice than to attend the school their parents had sent them.
They called on the state government to come to their aid.
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