Dear Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, SOS

 

Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu should urgently declare a state of emergency in the Lagos State school system so that school kids, the future of the state, will not perish under the avalanche of moral decadence, physical abuse or bullying, cultism and death.

By the way, those who think Lagos State Government was rash and should have waited for God-knows-what before shutting down the Chrisland School system in the state, don’t know what they are talking about.

If the school, which has custody of the nation’s valuable assets, was careless enough to the extent that the unholy actions of its students went viral on the internet, the government needed to do something drastic to restore sanity.

Any parent, who saw the wild sex video of the Chrisland School kids, which reportedly got more than one million downloads; the bullying to death of the Dowen College pupil and the crushing to death of a pupil in front of Babs Fafunwa Grammar School, Ojudu, would ask if he should be sending his kids to school in Lagos State.

When you hear the tragic story of a school bus that ran over a toddler that it just dropped at home, you wonder what kind of safety training the school bus drivers, who have custody of these children for a substantial part of the day, went through.

Also when you hear stories of school children that are “stolen” from creches, nursery and primary schools, even by beneficiaries of the victims’ parents, you will appreciate the need for the government to diligently keep a watchful eye on pupils under the watch of schools.

As for child pornography, Baron Daniel Cardon de Lecture, Chairman of the Board of International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children, had said, “It is unacceptable. (And) it is time for the leaders of every country (including Governor Sanwo-Olu) to act. Our commitment is to work with them to… eradicate this terrible problem.”

Child pornography should be treated as a crime that attracts stringent jail term, though it is regrettable that of the 184 countries that are members of the Interpol system as many as 95 have no laws against child pornography. And the laws that exist are even inadequate to curb the crime.

The sex tape should prompt Governor Sanwo-Olu to start thinking of a law to deal with child pornography and the criminal negligence of schools that (albeit unintentionally) expose vulnerable kids in their care to this moral epidemy. Lagos, as you know, is the beacon of innovative governance in Nigeria.

Cultism, which has spilled out of the tertiary institutions unto primary schools, secondary schools and the streets, has reached endemic proportions. The talk on the street is that Ikorodu, Lekki and Fadeyi, in Lagos State, are the most infested with the deadly menace of cultism in Nigeria.

Many public and private secondary schools in Lagos have become lawless, ungovernable (even ungoverned) zones where kids have practically taken over authority from scared teachers and school administrators.

A Vice Principal in the oldest Federal Government-owned boys’ school in Lagos once told the story that the kids, many of whom are children of the elite, bring wads of dollars and dangerous weapons, like guns, to school.

They sometimes order “effico,” or over-ambitious, teachers out of the classroom whenever they think they have had enough lessons for the day. And when the principal is told of the affront he acts as if he is hard of hearing.

Apart from the possibility of being mobbed by the students, the children’s well-heeled parents, many of whom are senior public officials, can cause the principal to lose his job and put his family in financial jeopardy.

There is the story of a Federal Government permanent secretary, who went to the oldest Federal Government-owned girls’ school in Lagos State to cut off the hair of a female teacher for cutting off the hair of his daughter.

As the Lagos State Safety Commission now runs the Safe Schools Lagos Initiative, its Director-General, Lanre Mojola, enthuses that “safer schools produce safer children and safer children are the bedrock of the future.”

Mojola promises that his commission will “meet school operators and engage them on how we can make safety the fulcrum of the curriculum within the schools.” He asks, “How can we ensure that teachers teach basic principles of safety and to ensure (that) children interact in a safe environment.”

Thankfully, Lagos State Commissioner for Education, Folashade Adefisayo, adds that the Lagos State Government has organised SSLAG as a proactive measure to curb bullying, cultism, auto accidents and other hazards in the Lagos State school system.

An educational expert, Dr Bisi Esuruoso of SchoolRun Academy Venture, argues that “there is a need to (wholistically) regulate certain places, people, products, services and/or activities that school-aged children are exposed to.”

She advocates that “churches, mosques, fun-themed parks and learning centres would be regulated for safe products.” It is fair to add that many religious organisations only seem to follow the offerings, and not the welfare, of their congregation these days.

SSLAG is said to be a security and safety platform designed for Lagos State schools. It covers a host of activities, which include control of access to schools, monitoring of school transportation, checks on administrative and teaching staff of schools and upgrade of the knowledge of teachers’ education, and sensitisation of other education stakeholders.

Lagos State Government should activate the promises of Governor Sanwo-Olu to “ensure (that) our children are safe at all times; sanitise the education sector; and (provide) a secure and safe learning environment (that) potentially allows students and staff to focus on the business of learning.”

When you remember that there are about 13.5 million — some say 15 million — out-of-school children roaming the streets of Nigeria, including Lagos, which ironically is classified as an educationally-disadvantaged state, you get the picture of the magnitude of the problem.

You may have noticed the mix of youths from all parts of Nigeria and the Sahel region on the streets of Lagos. The best of them are “marwa” (tricycle) drivers, “okada” (commercial motorcycle) riders, or “danfo” bus conductors. The worst are petty thieves, armed robbers and kidnappers, while the ne’er-do-well stragglers are in-between.

The intensity of the wild culture of the street in the schools of Lagos, and other states, calls for urgent government intervention. Any more time lost to slow or non-intervention does not bode well for the nation.

In addition to close monitoring of pupils in schools, the government must find a way to actively engage the kids in sports of all kinds. The absence of sports fields in most private primary and secondary schools in Lagos State prevents the kids from engaging in wholesome recreations.

And that lack has caused the devil to find work for the idle kids: It has led them to drug addiction, wild sexcapades, bullying and cultism. And sometimes this has led to needless loss of sanity, health, limbs and lives of the children.

To save the children of Lagos from needless violence, Governor Sanwo-Olu should please walk the laudable SSLAG talk.