Schools that should be grounds for nurturing tender wards are fast becoming torture camps, going by experiences of pupils as lately reported. Rather than be tended, wards are being brutalised in the private schools, sometimes resulting in fatalities linked to corporal high-handedness.

A 19-month-old boy named Obinna Adeze died in Asaba, the Delta State capital, last week, after being treated to corporal punishment by a teacher at Arise and Shine Nursery and Primary School in the town where he was enrolled by his mother. The boy fell into a coma and died some days after he was allegedly given 31 strokes of the cane by the teacher whose mother happened to be the school proprietress. His alleged offence was that he was playing with water and got himself wet. Reports cited the victim’s mother, 28-year-old Gift Ohanezeze, claiming that he was held prostrate while being flogged penultimate Monday. Following medical complications that resulted, Obinna was taken by her mother for medical attention and was referred to the Federal Medical Centre in the town, where he eventually died. According to Gift, who is a single parent, the boy was enrolled in the school just three weeks prior to the incident.

The police confirmed the incident but could not confirm the claim that 31 strokes of the cane were inflicted on Obinna, saying no one witnessed that particular detail. Neither could the police confirm a direct connection between the corporal punishment administered on the boy and the subsequent fatality, until an autopsy is conducted to ascertain the cause of death. Emeka Nwogbo who is accused of flogging the 19-month-old to death rebuffed the accusation. Speaking at the state police command offices where he is being detained along with his mother, the proprietress, he acknowledged that the child was beaten for unruly behaviour, but not with the brutality alleged. He thereby impliedly denied that the corporal punishment was directly responsible for the death. The Delta State Government has meanwhile sealed off the school, saying it was interested in unravelling the circumstances surrounding Obinna’s death. Information commissioner Charles Aniagwu also said the school operated illegally because it was neither registered nor recognised by the state government.

elodun Council Area of Lagos State. The two-year-old pupil, a girl, was said to have been flogged and wounded by her teacher for alleged inability to recite the English alphabets in class. A Twitter user who made the allegation on his handle, eliciting outrage from other social media users, claimed that the flogged girl is his niece. He posted two photographs of the victim, with one revealing multiple wounds inflicted on her back. According to him, when the mother of the girl, who is his sister, confronted the female teacher who flogged her daughter, the teacher’s defence was that the girl wasn’t the only one who was flogged. Media reports cited Lagos State Ministry of Education saying it wasn’t aware of the incident as at the time it was reported.

The tragedy in Asaba and the unconfirmed incident in Lagos, like similar incidents previously reported, highlighted the crisis presently hobbling the Nigerian education system. Owing to the shambolic state of the public system, business venturers become school proprietors without having the requisite experience, and they recruit all manner of people, including family members who are not professionally trained as teachers, and who atimes take out personal frustrations on the pupils. This situation is compounded by the inability of regulatory authorities to exercise preemptive oversight.

On the other hand, there is the collapse of the insular family system, such that babies are now casually dumped by parents with minders even before they are weaned off suckling. These are symptoms of a failed society that need urgent redress.