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Correcting the Child or Child Abuse? There’s No Justification for the Emotional Trauma
People’s excuse for the continuation of something is often because it has always been done. But does “it has always been done” make it right?
Activist Bukky Shonibare, on Twitter shared two videos of a teacher named flogging students Government Science School, Nasarawa Eggon, Nasarawa State.
He’s flogging the students, children, with a cable, before an assembly of other students from the school, while the school principal watches on.
The truth is that a grown man beating children is bad enough on its own terms. That it is with a cable makes it worse. It should be unacceptable in any society. It is abuse.
Of course, being Nigerians in Nigeria, the Twitter thread is rife with proponents of the act.
We endured this while we were in school, too, they have said. It made us stronger. It is a method of discipline. It corrects.
Comments like those are rich though, coming from Nigerians. Have we looked at our society? Does it seem like one made up of well-adjusted, disciplined people?
That we are a people who believe that to physically abuse children is to correct them isn’t indicative of a well-adjusted society. Because are we really well adjusted?
Is there anyone who looks back at the teachers or seniors who abused us with fondness and gratitude? Is it not with contempt, along with a bad taste in our tongues, that we look back?
Violence never corrects. Violence only breeds trauma.
And, yeah, there are people who will say, “So am I no longer allowed to beat my children?”
Errr, well, if beating your children involves them lying on the cold floor while you stand over them and swing a cable forcefully at their backs, then maybe not.
See the videos of the teacher beating the students below:
This barbaric act happened in Government Science School, Nasarawa Eggon, Nasarawa State.
The man flogging is Mr. Musa; and that's the Principal in native – Mr. Christopher Ogiri.
This is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE! Put a stop to this, please.
Cc: @MBuhari @ProfOsinbajo pic.twitter.com/pa7WEhoFAl
— Bukky Shonibare (@BukkyShonibare) January 15, 2018
Here is the second video –@FMENigeria @MBuhari @ProfOsinbajo @Omojuwa @yinkanubi @ola2njee @HamzyCODE @AishaYesufu @iameneji @OgbeniDipo @akandeoj @FemAdesina @UNICEF_Nigeria @AmnestyNigeria @PoliceNG @MKabrik @aminugamawa @AbusidiquBlog @bellanaija @SaharaReporters @channelstv pic.twitter.com/rxMld3sNZ8
— Bukky Shonibare (@BukkyShonibare) January 15, 2018
