Nigeria: Help, hoodlums have taken over our school —Pupils

Idimu Community Primary School, Idimu, Lagos is under siege by hoodlums who vandalise facilities and force teachers and pupils out  every afternoon, SAMUEL AWOYINFA reports

Idimu Community Primary School, Idimu, Lagos has two classes of pupils. One resume with their teachers by 8am and closes by 2pm. As soon as it is 2pm, the other set of ‘pupils’,  made up of  area boys and hoodlums,  take over. Any teacher they meet in the school premises is harassed and forced out.

“Mama Tisa, ago meji ti lu o. E ko eru yin k’ee ma lo si ile yin. Abi aago meji ko ni Ijoba sanwo fun yin de ni? E jade, awa boys ti de,” they would say in Yoruba. This means, “Mama teacher (referring to the headmistress), it’s 2pm. Pack your bag and go to your house now. At least, the government engages you till 2pm. Get out of the school. The boys have come.”

 Any teacher who refuses to obey the hoodlums’ instruction is beaten, or her bag is snatched. They take over the school and start to vandalise the classrooms, offices and defecate anywhere they like. These hoodlums and other undesirable elements have kept the school, which a source alleged produced the current Chairman, Egbe – Idimu Local Council Development Area, Mr. Waheed Bello, on its knees. It shares the same compound with Local Government Primary School.

The school’s infrastructure too is under a kind of a siege. Located along the busy Ikotun-Idimu Road in Egbe-Idimu LCDA, the institution has been under perpetual attack by these hoodlums.

The attack that comes in various forms has left the school in a state of disrepair. As one enters through the gate, one is welcomed by scars of abuse  of the compound. The physical structure is most affected. The ceiling of most of the classrooms have been vandalised, yielding gaping holes, while the desks and tables used by both the teachers and the pupils are not spared.

Pupils resume on a daily basis to park human faeces, condoms and ladies panties before lesson could commence. Efforts to rid the school of the menace have been futile. The community-based management committee of the school and the LCDA seem helpless. The boys are having a free reign over a school that is supposed to liberate children for ignorance  and oppression.

Our correspondent visited the school on Thursday after a concerned resident of the area raised the issue of the abuse at the just-concluded Third Lagos State Education Summit, organised by the state government where issues affecting education were discussed. It held on Tuesday and Wednesday at the Eko Hotel and Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos.

Apart from the fact that the school lacks adequate desks and tables, the roof of the L-shape block of classrooms leaks when it rains.

For the rain that fell last Wednesday, its ugly signs were visible in some of the classrooms, because the floors were still wet.

“We have a packer with which we  scoop water each time it rains, see it,” a female teacher, who pleaded anonymity,  raised up the plastic packer to authenticate her claims.

The pupils were excited to tell the story of anguish they have been subjected to by the hoodlums. According to them, the vagabonds, who usually scale the fence to enter the school premises, have turned the classes to their toilet. They cart away the desks and tables, convert them to firewood or for some other purposes.

A Primary Three pupil, Master Lekan Fabiyi, said that the every morning, they always meet wrap of human faeces inside their desks and at times inside the ceiling.

He said, “Some people shit (defecate) inside our classroom. They put it (human faeces) inside our desks. Sometime,  they put it  up here (pointing to the ceiling).”

One of the class teachers confirmed this ugly incident. She said that they usually wrap the faeces inside polythene bags and put them inside the openings in the ceiling.

 “At times, they do it on the floor. These pupils are made to clean it up by first putting sand on it before using the packer to scoop it and throw it out,” she adds.

Due to dearth of desks and tables, some of the pupils in Primary Four were seen sitting on bare floor, while a lesson was on.

One of them said, “We don’t know those people who carry our chairs at night,  that is why we sit on the floor.”

Our correspondent gathered that the desks and tables became firewood in the hands of some people in the neighbourhood, when the fence of the school fell during a downpour sometime last year. This gave them easy access into the school premises.

A source within the school said the Chairman, Egbe – Idimu LCDA, Bello, who was an alumnus of the school, replaced some of the desks and tables not long ago.

“But these hoodlums kept coming back to pick them. That is why they are never enough. Again, since they have damaged the ceiling and the aluminium  roofing sheets, each time it rains, the whole classroom  is flooded ,” another source said.

“Because some of these boys play ball here, they have damaged the roofing sheets and they now leak in some areas whenever it rains,” the source stated.

The source added that several times, the hoodlums had broken into the office of the head teacher, Mrs. Christiana Aghelegin, and looted it under the cover of darkness.

On one of such occasions, cartons of sachet milk meant for the pupils were said to have been carted away. Besides, uniforms of voluntary organisations, including Boys Scout and Girls Guide, were also stolen.

The hoodlums, on each occasion, left behind a sad reminder of their unholy visit – they defecated inside plates they could find in the office and covered it up. As a result, the headmistress’ office is now fortified with steel doors, while the windows were reinforced with burglary proof.

But all said and done, it is as if the vagabonds are kings in the school.  Our correspondent had it on good source that immediately it is 2:00pm when the school closes, some of them confront the head teacher and the teachers who might wait a minute longer, to leave “since their own official hours are over.”

In fact, on many occasions, the padlocks to the school gate are forcibly opened  and thrown away, with the head teacher having to replace them each time such happened.

They have also once removed the school gate some time last year, and warned the school authorities,  in a written note attached to the uprooted gate, never to fix it back. They were said to have warned then that if they did, they would remove the gate and dump it where it would never be found.

Idimu Community Primary School premises also serve as leisure to these characters. “At times we find bottles of beer, ladies’ pants and condoms all over the classrooms when we resume in the morning. That is what we face here,” another concerned teacher said.

Even the state and national flags hoisted by the school had been removed with their poles, and they were never traced.

“We cannot leave anything here, because it is not safe to do so. They break cupboards, ceilings and anything they can lay their hands on. There was a time they stole the pumping machine  used to pump water from the well,” the source added.

The school’s head teacher was reluctant to talk to our correspondent when contacted. But all she volunteered was that she was not allowed by civil service rule to talk to the press. “I am not competent to talk to you on this matter,” she said.

In fact, she, at a point, turned hostile and prevented our correspondent from taking photographs of the ugly spectacles. The one used here is the one the journalist struggled to take.

However, another source, who claimed that the current Chairman, Egbeda-Idimu Local Council Development Association,  was an alumnus of the school, commended the council boss for his efforts to lift the school.

The source said, “The chairman of Egbe-Idimu LCDA was an ex-pupil of this school. He has been very helpful. He replaced the gate when it was removed. He gave the school desks and tables too. We have also intimated him of what is going on here.”

When our correspondent visited the Egbe-Idimu LCDA Secretariat along Isheri -LASU Road, the Information Officer, Mrs. Funke Yomi-Ojo, said the chairman was busy with  an official matter.   He neither picked his call when a call was put through to his telephone line nor reply the text message sent to him as at the time of filing this report.

However, the chairman, School- Based Management Committee, Alimoso Local Government, under which the school is, Mr. Hezekial Osoba, said there was the need for the state government to provide adequate security for the school, especially at night.

He explained that a situation in which a 70-year-old security man, who could not secure himself, was engaged as a night security guard did not augur well for the safety of the pupils and facilities in the school.

He said, “Idimu Community Primary School is among the schools that my committee oversees. That school has for long been under attack by hoodlums. They break the ceilings, destroy the gate, defecate on the floor of classrooms and did other things that are terrible in its premises.

“There is need for the state government to provide proper security for that school. The men of Rapid Response Squad could be made to patrol that area every night to keep these bad boys at bay.”