Sylvester, Dowen And The Abdication Of Responsibilities By Stakeholders

_The Insight_

By Lateef Adewole

This past week has been another occasion of one bad news after another. It started with the unfortunate incident that occurred at Dowen College, Lekki, Lagos, concerning the death of one of their students, Sylvester Oromoni, a 12 year old in JSS 2. As we were still trying to recover from that, the news of eight children who allegedly died of asphyxiation in a parked car in front of the owner’s house at Adelayo Street, Agunaje, along Badagry Expressway, Lagos, broke. Just days after, a truck was said to have rammed into the students of Babs Fafunwa Memorial (formerly Ojodu) Grammar School, Ojodu, Lagos, who just finished their exams for that day and were going home.

Different accounts claimed different casualty figures with the worst saying that as much as 17 students were crushed to death by the truck, which by the way, was said to be running away from the Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIO) and Lagos State Transport Management Agency (LASTMA) officials, who were chasing him. The official figure was that 2 students died and some others injured. I personally hope this is the true figure. I could not imagine those other high numbers, or is it that I do not want to believe them?

In the last one week, I have read many articles, opinions, nudgets, advices, etc., written about these incidents. Same as series of analysis on different television stations, by different experts in Education, Psychology, Healthcare, Law and government, with each identifying what the likely problems were, how they affect students and the possible solutions. It has been a week of anguish for many people, especially parents like me.

When the news of Sylvester’s death broke and the circumstances that surrounded it, my mind flashed back to when my son was about to enter secondary school some years ago. In the effort to get a good school with proper discipline, I researched about many online, while also visited several ones physically. Typical of Nigerians like me, I visited many of these expensive schools too. When I was informed of their fees, I wondered; “boya won ma la ori won kowe si ni” (whether they will split open the children’s heads in those schools and insert all the knowledge they needed in their brains there, once and for all). Many are crazily outrageous.

The syndrome of equating the high cost to quality, which has permeated our society is what plays out here. When a school or anything at all, is not too costly, many simply assume it’s of low quality. Although, I have had reasons to dispute that many times. I eventually settled for one where I learnt of the history and background of strictness and discipline by the owner, which has become a tradition of the school. I knew of the school many years earlier watching Cowbellpedea National Mathematics Competitions on the television with my kids. I eventually settle for it.

Being far from my house, and thinking I would want him not to be distracted, I opted for boarding. Personally, I dislike keeping children in boarding houses. I never stayed in hostel throughout my school years except once, while in my final year in the university. And sincerely, that was the most uncomfortable period of my school years. My child’s school do so well in taking care and giving adequate attention to all students; day and boarders alike, from the feedback from my son. However, I was never happy to have kept him away from the family.

In my mind, I felt there is a cord being gradually broken between children and their parents when they stay away in boarding school, at such critical period of their growing up. This is a period where children are becoming much more aware as teenagers, begin to learn many life skills and imbibe life lessons. Who then becomes their role models from whom to learn all of that? Outsiders, who are the people they live with and see everyday as they live in schools. These could be the seniors or peers, who themselves need guidance.

Children would have spent over 75% of their live in school as boarders. The remaining 25% can hardly upturn whatever they have learnt or imbibed in the 75% period in boarding school. After about two years, I couldn’t contain it any longer, I changed him to day, going to school from home and was prepared to make the difficult sacrifices of transporting him to the school daily. He became happier too. We all became more united as a family. We see everyday, sleep and wake up together. There were no longer moments of separation that induced cries from both him and his siblings. Even the mother, as witnessed in those years while he was a boarder.

His going to school from home since then, along with his siblings later, has afforded us the parents, to closely monitor them and ask them questions regularly. They gist about happenings in their school with us every evening whenever they returned home. We visit the school every now and then to ask about their behaviours in school. We have all been happy as a family ever since. All these are at very high cost in money and stress. It’s tough to sustain, given the distance of the school and the terrible road network leading there, but we would rather do it!

I brought this up to highlight few things. These days, parents have abdicated their responsibilities on their children, with the excuse of striving to provide for them. Worse is the situation where both the father and mother have 8-5 jobs. In a city like Lagos, many have to leave their homes as early as 5 am in the morning or earlier, to beat the traffic. They come back late at past 9 or 10pm or even later. What time do they have to train their children?

As the Yorubas will say; “omo ti a ko ko, ni yio gbele ti a ko ta”. In the course of pursuing money, many have literally lost their children to the world. Many parents have left the care of the children to househelps. We have seen many horrifying videos or read of what some househelps do to kids, toddlers, when their parents were away. Many children have been sexually abused, assaulted, and damaged for life, in the process. Some have lost their lives. Who then is the bigger loser in the long run? The parents of course.

When not househelps, they outsourced the training to the teachers in their children’s schools. Sadly and ironically too, many of these absentee parents would still not allow their children to be properly disciplined by the teachers. Yorubas have said it that “bami na omo mi, ko denu olomo”. We have heard cases where parents went to fight teachers, beat them and even arrested them for admninistering “reasonable” punishment on their children.

Parents who continue to indulge their children at home, condoning their excesses and wrongdoings, and also fight teachers for disciplining them at school for misbehaving, are definitely raising “monsters”. It’s such kids who become bullies, like those accused of being responsible for Sylvester’s death. This is most prevalent in many of these “overpriced” schools. This is because, they are populated with “rich kids”. The “do you know who my father is?” gang! Many of such children believe they can go away with anything because of who their parents are. That seems to reflect in the Dowen College incident.

Many schools are now simply business. They are desperately profit-oriented. By this, they are ready to admit, condone and indulge any child, irrespective of his or her bad attitude and upbringing, so long the parents can pay their outrageous school fees. While I do not encourage maltreatment of students in the name discipline or punishment, such schools have made it abomination for teachers to even correct some students for bad behaviours. Does the work of a teacher ends with just teaching academic subjects? Or, are schools just about getting certificates?

In the olden days, teachers were most revered. This is because they are seen as “demigods”. Like I once wrote about them, they are “divine recreators”. Many parents specially handed over their children to teachers for more training as they are known for their strictness and discipline. Sadly now, they have become “tissue papers” which everyone uses to clean hands. How do we expect a student whose parent(s) abuse, insult or assault a teacher in his presence and on his behalf, to treat such teacher?

Before now, the second layer of children’s upbringing comes from the community, but now, the community has failed them too. I remember how my father would punish us and all our friends from neighbouring houses together, for any misdemeanor we were all involved. In fact, elderly people needed not know the child of whom you were before you were flogged or disciplined for wrongdoing anywhere. It’s the children who would even be scared to let their parents find out about such “outside” punishment, as that would mean another round of punishment from the parents at home, without even asking who the person that had previously admnistered one to them. That’s how community raised children in those days, in what Yorubas describe as; “oju kan lo bi omo, igba oju lo n wo”. Not now when parents fight whoever corrects their children’s misbehaviours outside, not to talk of beating them.

The governments have failed in their roles in many instances. It’s the responsibility of government to provide quality basic education for the citizens. But, how have they fared in that role? Poorly. Ironically, many people who are at the helms of affairs today and some years back, were the same beneficiaries of top quality education through public schools. Older generations benefited from Awolowo’s free education of Western region from 1951 to 1959, and up to 1966 before everything “scatter scatter”.

I benefitted from the UPN free education policy of the South Western states in the 70’s and 80’s, still under the leadership of Awolowo. How come many of them couldn’t provide functional educational system for the later generations? How many public officials and political office holders can put their children in the public schools they provide for the citizens today? Many parents break banks (literally) to be able to send their children to schools now, just to give them quality education.

Also, with the proliferation of private schools, the role of the government as a regulator is well cut-out for them. How effective have they performed in this? Like in many things government does, it has not been satisfactory. In fact, Sylvester’s case just happened to gain traction. Many of such incidents occur regularly all over the country and they were eventually swept under the carpet, without getting justice for the victims. That’s why many hope that the same fate will not befall this case.

When government failed to provide quality affordable education for the citizens and still failed to provide proper oversight over private schools that have taken over their responsibilities, to prevent the people from being exploited, this is what we get. Likewise, an effective inspection will ensure that structures are purpose-built for what they are designed for, unlike what we have all over the place now, where residential buildings have been converted to schools.

What came out of the Dowen incident was that the new hostel built where these children reside “is a time bomb”, according to a former Counsellor from that school, who stated this on a zoom programme. He claimed there were no provisions for house parents on each floor to supervise these children. A parent on the zoom bursted with emotion, as she said her son has had similar experience but only furtunate to have survived it. She said the only house master available for the boys’ hostel hardly go up to the three storey building because he is too fat. Therefore, the third floor has become the “lion’s den” where senior students do as they wished. These are things a proper oversight would have revealed, but no!

The precise cause of death of those 8 children in that car, along Badagry Expressway, was not scientifically ascertained. Why? Because the government hospital they took their bodies to, demanded for hundred thousand naira per corpse from their parents for autopsy. What madness! Imagine many of those families, already overwhelmed with grief of the death of their children, to still cough out that amount. Many of them might even be struggling to feed already. Where will they get such from? This is another irresponsibility of government.

If the story about VIO and LASTMA officials pursuing the driver who ran over the Ojodu school kids is true, all of them should be found and punished appropriately, in accordance with the law of the land. They are as guilty as the driver, who already partly received jungle justice (condemnable too), with the burning of his truck. He must have been lucky to have escaped. He could have been killed as well.

Children are born innocent. They grow up learning and adapting from their environment. That is what parents, who are expected to be their first teachers, should provide. Followed by the community / society, and later, the schools. As earlier highlighted, where all these failed, what should we expect from such children? What about the situation where the parents actually spoilt the children with their actions and utterances? A child who sees his parents bully others at home, who sees them mistreat their househelps like slaves. He or she can’t be anything but bullies and wicked.

Let me make something clear, this problem of bullying is not peculiar to expensive schools and it did not just start. Public schools students do have similar experiences. Hardly any boarding school would not have bullies. It is like a culture. And this culture has existed for as long as boarding school system existed. Bullying is also not exclusive to borders in hostels. Day students in non-boarding schools can experience bullying as well.

The only difference is that, in day schools, bullying can easily be exposed, unlike what the boarding house students do in the dark of the night, which could easily be covered, like the case in Dowen College. Also, the “rich kids” bully fellow students, riding on the influence of their parents. They believe their parents will always cover for them, which often is the case. Even the school authority often hide such incidents for the same reason. Imagine where a bully’s father is a friend to the governor or president or other politically powerful individuals. Which school management would like to offend them by punishing such child? There are children who just refused to heed training of their parents. Those are peculiar cases and must be treated as such with collaboration between the parents and teachers.
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In all, there is need for all stakeholders to refocus their attention to what is critical, beyond money. It’s time everyone began to pay more attention to the children, at home or in schools. Spare the rod, spoil the child. Children’s misbehaviours should be properly corrected and be allowed to be disciplined as and when necessary. Not in excess as we saw some teachers do sometimes. We should continue to pray for them too.

May God continue to protect our children and guide them aright.

God Bless Nigeria.

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