Since the news of the sad and unfortunate death of 12-year-old Sylvester Oromoni broke last week, there have been, expectedly, outpouring of emotions and a flurry of opinions on the matter.
The late Oromoni was a student of Dowen College, Lekki, Lagos, until he was allegedly bullied and beaten by some seniors, leading to his death.
I sympathise with the family and friends of the late youngster. No one deserves to lose their child, especially in such gruesome and avoidable circumstances.
Amidst the various shades of opinion, one that has stood out for me are those who have taken it upon themselves to demonise and criminalise the boarding school system, while inadvertently diverting attention from the main issue.
The assumption that the boarding school system is the problem is jejune.
In November 2021, a student of Army Children High School, Epe, Lagos, was reported to have shot and killed his teacher. The student, suspected to be a member of a cult, had allegedly threatened to deal with the teacher for punishing him. Only a few days ago, a student of Erhimu Secondary School, Abraka, Delta State, Michael Ogbeife beat a teacher of the school, Joseph Ossai, to death.
The students in both recent instances cited above are not in the boarding house. They are simply children without the right upbringing and value system.
The main issue, to my mind is bullying, bullying that is taught, encouraged or overlooked by parents.
When there is a case of bullying in school, we must not fail to remember that both the bullied and the bullies were sired by parents.
The question then is – who are the parents of the bullies? How much work have they put into raising their children right? Every parent needs to pause for a moment and ask themselves the kind of child (ren) they’re raising.
Parenting is very serious business that must be attended to with the seriousness it deserves. What we find however, especially in contemporary times, are parents who have outsourced the job of raising their children to be responsible, kind and empathetic to schools, whose authorities are too busy trying to please the parents and would rather look away than discipline an erring child.
Some parents, especially among the nouveaux rich, think child discipline is by sending their children and wards to expensive schools while they go about their business. Parents need to do better by their children and stop outsourcing their responsibilities to schools just because they pay a lot of money.
These are the same people who over-indulge their children and impact them with all manner of dysfunctional traits and then dump them in the boarding house, saddling their mates with the burden of dealing with their ill-manners and other negative traits.
Parents need to remember that the boarding school is not a dumping ground for badly raised children.
You cannot abdicate your role as a parent and send children lacking in the right morals to schools then expect them to come out well-rounded. Values are taught from home and can only be improved on by the school, based on its own value system.
Isn’t this why the Holy Bible admonished us to train up a child in the way he will go so that when he grows, he will not depart from it?
Parents need to, also, at every point, remember that they are models for their children who will treat others the same way they see their parents relate with people, especially where there is an imbalance of power.
As a parent, how do you treat domestic servants, how do you speak to the waiter at the restaurant when out with your children? Do you talk down on others in the presence of your children? Do you threaten to deal with people? And when your children are unkind, disrespectful or over step boundaries in relating with them, do you reprimand them or let them be because “they are just children”?
To eradicate and or minimise cases of bullying and harassment, parents must be intentional about cultivating better friendship with their kids such that they are able to talk to them about issues bothering them, no matter the level of threat.
Fear is the currency upon which bullies thrive. They instil fear in their victims and threaten to sometimes, kill them, if they speak to anyone.
Parents must engage their children, ask questions and take action as often as they have to, when their children report cases of bullying to them.
When you visit your children in the boarding house on visiting days, it should not just be to eat, drink and laugh. Have real discussions with them. Find out how they’re faring mentally, emotionally and academically. This is your duty as a parent.
A friend told me the other day that after one of many visits to her children’s school with her husband, a classmate of one of her children asked the child what they are always discussing with their parents and laughing about each time they visit. The prodding child said after initial pleasantries with his parents, he eats his food while they stay on their phones and he looks on quietly till they’re ready to leave.
Sadly, these are the kinds of parents we have today, parents too busy to attend to their children.
The problem is not with the boarding school system the way I see it, it is more with parenting, wrong parenting especially on the part of those who raised the monsters.
Boarding schools warts and all have moulded a lot of people into amazing personalities, doing great things.
This is one case too many and must not be swept under the carpet.
It is heart-warming that the Lagos State government has already closed the school to allow for proper investigation.
This is what the FCT authorities neglected to do in the case of Premier Academy, Lugbe, Abuja where 14-year-old Keren-Happuch Aondodoo Akpagher was allegedly raped, a condom left in her and she developed sepsis, leading to her death.
The police also said it is making progress with the investigation and has arrested three of the students mentioned by the late Oromoni in his dying declaration.
If it is true that some of the boys mentioned have been spirited out of the country by their parents, let the parents be arrested and prosecuted for obstruction of justice. In Michigan, USA, the parents of the boy who shot his schoolmates have been charged with manslaughter.
Criminal elements among students, just like those in the larger society, must be dealt with in accordance with the law to serve as a deterrent to others.
