The news reaching basklifenews is that the students that were accused of contributing to the death of Sylvester Oromoni have been arrested. It will be wrong for one to assume that the juvenile delinquency, bully and terror that occurred at the Dowen College Lekki were peculiar to the school. It was an unwritten tradition in so many secondary schools in Nigeria. Late Sylvester Oromoni’s case was only the last straw that broke the camel’s back. His tragic death is an echo of serious reform in the Nigerian educational system.
Before the expulsion of the European Christian missionaries in Nigeria after the Nigerian Civil War, the standards of education and moral discipline were high in schools. Virtues were seen as the norm. Junior College students saw the senior students as role models. Thus, they emulated their footsteps, did school assignments with them, and struggled to be exemplary. The struggle to achieve excellence was paramount.
However, when the government took over the schools after the Civil War in 1970, sound educational norms fell apart in the College schools. Many uncommitted, undisciplined, and immoral teachers and guardians sprouted in schools. Students affected by the civil war started seeing indiscipline as might and vice as right. Brooding Junior students looked forward to becoming senior students to rain down revenge on the junior students. Culture of acrimony was cultivated in the minds of the students, with less attention to moral instructions.
The increase in the number of private secondary schools did not abate the menace. Unfortunately, rather than structuring the school dormitories according to the classes of the students to increase even socialization and easy supervision, junior and senior students are made to live together with poor guidance – giving some poorly cultured, unethical, and irresponsible senior students to exploit, bully and instill perpetual fear in the minds of the junior students. It was in such situations that many students were abused and forced into cultism, illicit drugs, masturbation, lesbianism, homosexuality, to mention but a few.
This is the time to put an end to the culture of unethical education and juvenile terrorism. Urgent reforms are needed. Functional surveillance cameras should be installed at schools, and confidential report boxes and emails should be created for the affected students to blow the whistles. More so, the school authorities should be empowered to sanction irresponsible students without consideration of their parentage. All hands should be on deck to crush the terror in the schools.
