•Investigators have a lot to unravel, given the sexual perversion exhibited by school children in the viral video

The last 10 years have been very sad for the Nigerian child. From the heartrending abductions in Chibok, North East Nigeria, to the arson in Bunu Yadi where young boys were burnt alive as they slept, to the abductions in Dapchi, Niger, Zamfara, Kaduna and many other states, to the disruption of West African School Certificate Examinations in the South East, to sexual violations of different hues in all the tiers of education. It has been a challenging period for both parents and the society.

In the last six months, however, the death of Sylvester Oromoni in Dowen College, Lagos, over alleged bullying had necessitated the closure of the school by the Lagos State government, pending full investigations of the case. Sadly, Nigerians were yet to come to terms with that tragic incident when they woke up last week to the scandalous viral sex tape of minors who are students of Chrisland Schools, Lagos. The video has been a product of varied analysis and outrage on a global scale, given the power of the social media.

The mother of the girl-child at the centre of the scandal had cried out, alleging rape. So the question we are asking is, how this incident remained under wraps for almost a month amidst allegations of cover-up by the Chrisland Schools management? The Lagos State government again swiftly shut down the schools pending investigations. It had also cautioned citizens to stop sharing the video on social media or risk a 14-year jail term. Whether the state has the technology to track such offenders remains to be seen.

We are as outraged by the actions of the minors as most Nigerians. This is a blood-chilling scandal from the same Chrisland that about two years ago had a member of its staff jailed for sexually violating a two-year old. Today, the school is in the wrong side of the news again. What is the management doing wrongly? While we do not expect they wave a magic wand to abolish criminal activities of staff or students, we expect that there must be an introspection. Is the school management really very alert to security issues? Are there other scandals that are yet to be unearthed? How did a school trip degenerate to child pornographic video? Why was there the alleged attempt to suppress the scandal? What sort of supervisory roles did the school provide for the students who were of both genders? Is Chrisland alone in this alleged act of impropriety?

We are also outraged that the torchlight is on the girl in the scandal even when a group of boys was alleged to have gang-raped her. These are mere babies in the African cultural social demographics. Are we surreptitiously carrying on the blame game on the girl-child in form of the biblical narrative of the pharisees that brought the alleged woman adulterer to be stoned without the man that committed the sin with her? This sends a very wrong message. How are we raisng our boys?

We equally believe that there has been some failure of parenting in the society at large. Parents, especially those of the upper-middle class, seem to be abdicating in the moral compass they ought to provide for their children, either as parents, teachers or members of the society. We notice that most parents now contract out a huge part of the parenting job to teachers and the social media.

While the parents cannot operate outside the global social circles, there are still apps that parents can use to monitor and control what their children watch on social media, which is a huge part of their life influences at the moment. We believe there must be proper moral direction and control, given our culture.

On the part of schools management, the education ministries at the federal and state levels must upgrade their activities. A lot of reactive instead of proactive, preventive actions are at the root of the chaos we experience in the education sector. The alleged attempt by the school to suppress the scandal must be thoroughly investigated. Governments too must scale up their supervisory roles, both socially and educationally, because when people understand the consequences of non-compliance with set laws, they tend to exercise restraint.

We expect that this incident would be thoroughly investigated and all those found culpable either as parents, teachers or school management punished according to the law.

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