On February 2, 2017, some junior students were found sweeping a class at the time they should have been in their own class.
On February 2, 2017, some junior students were found sweeping a class at the time they should have been in their own class.
The teacher who saw this happen, rounded up the SS3 girls who were responsible and gave them two strokes of his cane on their palms. All except one girl, who got him by the scruff of his collar, and ended up dashing out of the class to call her mother on the phone.
Her mother arrived with her aunt, who is a DSS operative, and an unidentified man. They seized the cane from the teacher – in the presence of the students – forced him to lie down, then thrashed him. The classrooms in FGGC, Calabar are not isolated; they're in blocks. So, other teachers heard the commotion and intervened. The aunt who is a DSS operative made the second phone call.
What happened next, is something that has never happened before, in the history of Unity Colleges in Nigeria. Three Hilux vans full of DSS operatives swooped on the school. They forced their way onto government property, shooting as they came.
They made their way to the classroom, intending to kill, cause destruction and inflict fear. By the time they were done, six teachers had been physically assaulted. They had wrestled one to the ground and attacked him with the butt of a gun because he wouldn't stand there and get shot as they indicated they preferred.
They ensured that they paid no mind to the terrified, screaming students – as they continued to attack the teachers. These officers who had sworn to serve and protect relieved another teacher of her bag containing (among other things) her mobile phone and the sum of N80,000.
Might as well add theft; after all, the real intent was attempted murder. They also beat up the Chief Security Officer of the school, took the student who had called her mother, and shot their way out of the school.
Three things that need looking into:
1. The state of education in Nigeria
Before we get into “Why did he flog her?” corporal punishment from teachers, is an acceptable form of punishment in Unity Colleges. It's something that parents agree to at the point of enrolment. Or it's something they are supposed to agree to if they bother to read all the literature they are given. The same literature that expressly forbids bullying junior students.
So, when did it become OK for an award-winning teacher – Mr. Owai has actually taught in FGGC Calabar for 15 years and was voted “Best Teacher in the School” by the students, last session – to be attacked for punishing a senior student for bullying junior students?
The principal wasn't on the premises (she was in Abuja on official assignment), but there are three Vice Principals; do they not know what gunshots sound like? How did it get to the point where a student thinks this kind of mess is OK? One might argue that she's a minor (on the basis of her age), who had no idea or intention of the outcome.
However, further investigation reveals that the 16-year-old fully intended for worse to happen; in her boastful words to her friends, “I will make sure that FGGC, Calabar burns to the ground today!” This is a girl who has been registered for external examinations, and she wants the school to burn to the ground. Literally.
It is a categorical fact that some of the old girls who support the bully – implying that the teacher deserves what he got – were bullies in their time, and have predictably turned into women with discipline problems, who lack achievements.
There are three Vice Principals (one of whom is Mr. Ogah, the VP Admin); why is the school not raising hell, on behalf of hard-working teachers who don't even get paid enough? Why is the DSS not picking up the medical bills? Why is the Federal Ministry of Education, the House of Reps, the police or anyone doing anything?
2. Those so-called arrests
So, we hear that five nameless, faceless people have been arrested. Let's back up a bit. Five people. Three vans full of operatives committed trespass, theft, attempted murder, and criminal damage. There are bullet holes in the walls of school buildings.
They put lives in danger because … how does it even make sense to approach a school and start shooting? But the DSS wants Nigeria to believe that five people did that? If two people were already on the premises and three vans arrived later … were there no drivers?
Or were the vans so tiny that they contained nobody but the drivers? Were the drivers, the shooters? How is it possible that a junior operative would have the clout to sign out personnel + weapons + ammunition + fuelled vehicles, with barely an hour's notice? But they were five. Where are stuntsmen when Nollywood needs them?!
3. Why does Fubara Duke still have a job?
The man is a pathological liar. He was very quick to claim, at the onset, that no DSS operative was anywhere near the school. He said hoodlums had attacked the school. I'm very curious as to how he would know a) that an attack even took place, and b) who carried out the attack.
Is he psychic? When videos began to surface, he did a sorta volte-face and has tried to sweep everything under the carpet. Now, we've got reports that five people have been arrested? Which five people? He said they were never there! So, from what hat did he magically draw these five people whose names, genders and identities, nobody knows? Five people that none of the victims has identified. What will happen to those five?
Chioma Nnani is an award-winning author, who also contributes to business, lifestyle and literary publications. One of Africa's most fearless storytellers, she was a 2016 CREATIVE AFRICAN Awards finalist in the category of “Best Fiction Writer”, and a DIVAS OF COLOUR 2016 finalist.
Chioma has also been nominated twice for a UK BEFFTA (Black Entertainment Film Fashion Television and Arts) Award in the “Best Author” category, was named “One of 100 Most Influential Creatives” in the world by London-based C.Hub Magazine, lives in Abuja, where she runs THE FEARLESS STORYTELLER HOUSE EMPORIUM LTD, can be reached on @ChiomaNnani and blogs at http://ift.tt/1K2J06x for which she has won a 2016 Blog of the Year BEFFTA.
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