The Uyo college molestation story

A distraught mother, Deborah Okezie, posted a video on facebook recently of her terrified and frail-looking son and narrated how the 11-year-old boy was sodomised and molested by his seniors at Deeper Life High School, Uyo in Akwa Ibom State.  Going by the account of the woman, her child was allegedly moved by the school’s principal from a hostel where other junior students stayed to another one filled with senior students because he was bedwetting. He was allegedly harassed and molested in the hostel where he reportedly suffered broken anus: the senior students habitually inserted their fingers and toes in the victim’s anus. The young boy’s travails also included starvation and battery as he was allegedly frequently denied food and beaten up by the senior students who also   allegedly threatened to kill him if he narrated his horrendous experience to anyone.

The appearance of the young boy in the amateur video posted by his mother bore eloquent testimony to his sordid experience: he looked visibly terrified, frail and sickly. It is rather  ironic that some parents send their children and wards to faith-based schools in order  to avoid the kind of horrible experience that Mrs Okezie claimed her child went through.   Regrettably, it is now evident that such parents would need to moderate their expectation of high standards of character and conduct based only on school names and assumed religious orientation. Unsupervised youth in a group, irrespective of their background and orientation,  tend to exhibit aberrant behaviours; it is therefore unconscionable for anyone who has supervisory role to play over their activities to neglect such a significant function.  Perhaps if the school authorities had carried out their duty of care, they would have nipped the senior students’ anti-social behaviour in the bud and saved the victim from the sad experience.

It is yet unclear what the school authorities intended to achieve by moving the victim, said to be bedwetting, from the junior students’ hostel to the senior students’ hostel where he would be least tolerated.  As would be expected, the older students in the new hostel molested and harassed him, obviously because of his personal challenge. Could it be that the school authorities wanted the young boy punished and shamed for bedwetting? Whatever the motivation was, it has turned out to be a clear case of bad judgment. The allegation is also rife that allocations for students’ feeding were being mismanaged in the school.  Indeed, there is a  likelihood that the school authorities may actually be contending with a much bigger rot than they  currently reckon with, but hopefully this will be unravelled by the investigation reportedly  launched  by the school authorities and the  inquiry ordered by  Akwa Ibom State government into the incident.

Without prejudice to the outcome of the inquiries, it is important to note that running a private school transcends a mere business; it embodies some elements of service to humanity and it must be construed in that context by school administrators. The administrators have responsibility not only to ensure that students are trained to become responsible adults who are worthy in character and learning but they are also precariously liable for the security and safety of the students while they are in their custody.  It is thus a whole lot of job that calls for painstaking supervision by the administrators rather than focusing mainly on pecuniary gain while the students are left to their own devices.  A regime of close supervision of students’ activities by school administrators, as obtained in the not- too- distant past when some teachers were given derisive names for being “too strict”, should be resuscitated. Then, students were never permitted to bully or heckle other students without retribution, let alone engaging in assault and sodomy.

Again, the administrators of faith-based schools should not assume that because many of their students supposedly come from highly religious homes, they would need little or no monitoring in their moral and spiritual lives. The reality is that even ministers of God and clerics, who are adults, are sometimes found on the wrong side of the law; it would therefore be presumptuous and deluding to assume that children of impressionable ages will put up their best behaviour without being closely guided just because their parents are people of faith.

Without doubt, the students who allegedly molested the young boy are rapists; they are a danger to the society and should be treated as such.  They should be punished together with any of their teachers/supervisors found to be culpably negligent. It is distressing that the psyche of an 11-year-old boy has been ruptured by negligent and irresponsible adults who permitted clearly aberrant students to hold sway under their watch. It is also concerning that the Deeper Life High School issue may not be an isolated case; there could be several other boarding schools that are replete with cases of physical and psychological abuses among students.

We enjoin school administrators across the board to be alert to their responsibilities by instituting a more effective system of mentoring, supervising and monitoring the activities of students.  A much closer check  on the  actions and conduct of  students and their teachers  is very crucial to ensuring that their efforts at  building  juveniles and  youths into responsible adults  are not vitiated by negligent teachers and patently deviant students.

YOU SHOULD NOT MISS THESE HEADLINES FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE

COVID-19: Nigeria Recorded 5,178 New Infections Last Week

Nigeria has officially entered a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the announcement made by the Presidential Taskforce on COVID-19. This is as confirmed cases in the country have increased astronomically weekly, Tribune Online analysis shows.

[ICYMI] Minutes After Electoral College Elected Joe Biden, US Attorney General Resigns (Resignation Letter Inside)

A close ally of President Donald Trump and the United States Attorney General, William Barr, has resigned his appointment after holding a meeting with the president…

Bandits Moved Abducted 333 School Boys On Bikes —DHQ

THE Nigerian Army, on Monday, gave more insight into the abduction of school children in Kankara Local Government Area of Katsina State…