Since last week when 11-year-old Sylvester Oromoni, a pupil of Dowen College, Lagos State, was reported to have died from injuries allegedly sustained from the bullying meted out to him by some senior students of the school, there has been an outpouring of outrage against the management of the school. The videos of the pain the little boy went through before he died broke many people’s hearts.
When I got to boarding school, I learnt that we must wake up by 5.15 am once the rising bell rang. Without waiting for the generator to come on, we would light our lamps right in the darkness. Then we would run to the middle of the hostel with our hymn book before the count of three by the house monitor who was one year below the house prefect.
That evening and later at night when we had our night prep, I noticed that I was strong and alert while reading. Those who didn’t have their siesta slept off in class after some minutes. Because of that, I took it upon myself to have my siesta every afternoon. I learnt how to plan my day at boarding school. I learnt that there was a time to sleep, rise, pray, work, eat, rest and read. I learnt how to have a timetable for reading. I learnt how to iron my clothes and polish my shoes like a professional. I learnt cleanliness. The weekly inspection result was announced every Friday during the house meeting. I was afraid of ever coming last and getting the pig trophy.
There were deviants in boarding school. There were those who engaged in homosexuality. There were boys who paid for rooms called bunks around the school where they hosted girls. There were those who would hide behind the hostel and smoke cigarettes. There were those who sneaked out of school to attend nightclubs or visit brothels. But students knew that once they were caught, the punishment was expulsion. The fear of bringing shame to your family was a huge deterrent.
Bullying exists in Nigerian schools, especially in boarding school, but what happened to little Sylvester at Dowen College was overboard, if the accounts in the public domain are anything to go by. If Sylvester was sleeping in his hostel when those boys came in at night to physically assault him, does that mean that no teacher lived in the hostel with the students? Today’s boarding school cannot be run like that of our era.
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