Akwa Ibom school defends teacher who flogged student mercilessly and left her with cane marks because her 'school uniform was short and goes against the Bible'
After an allegation of child abuse was made against its
staff, the management of the Private secondary school in Akwa ibom has come out
to speak on the issue.
It was a Facebook
user named Celestine Mel who shared photos of the student who was just identified
as Udeme. In the post, it was alleged that Udeme was canned mercilessly by a
staff of King Solomon Secondary school Uyo because her uniform was short.
I revealed that the
student in question is in SS3 and she is the daughter of his relation. He alleged
that she was canned because her "school uniform was too short and goes
against the Bible".
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When a relation of mine forwarded disturbing images, regarding the bestial brutality visited on her daughter, who is an SS3 student of King Solomon Secondary School, a privately owned co-educational institution in Uyo – Akwa Ibom by Mrs. Ndifreke Etim Asuquo, the daughter of the proprietress, who also doubles as the school’s admissions officer to me today, I was initially hesitant to believe my eyes. The gravity and beastliness of the sight scared daylight out of me. It was a Monday morning, and I was busy at work. I needed to focus on my to-do list and the many Monday meetings. So, I let it be.
Try as I could, my mind did not depart from those scorching pictures. I kept prancing between Microsoft Projects Office Suit, (which is my primary work tool), and the WhatsApp webpage which I used to archive the ghoulish pictures. Each visit to WhatsApp haunted me like a bad dream. I started hating myself and my environment. I was feeling tormented, raped and brutalized. I scoffed at the lack of empathy and grace, that could have provoke such violence by whomsoever, on my friend - Udeme. Some of unsightly videos are too graphic to share. Whodunnit?
Upon returning home this night, I demanded for and got the phone number of the beastly child-abuser. A woman for real? I was filled with more rage; too bitter to ring her up, to ask why she defiled this little angel so cruelly. As the adrenaline rushed down my veins, I summoned the courage to dial her. I needed to hear her side of the story. To be fair to her. And my conscience. I needed to convince myself that it was a dream.
At the second ring, she answered. The following dialogue ensured:
“Hello, my name is Celestine Mel, calling from the FCT. I’m I speaking to Madam Ndifreke of King Solomon School – Ewet Housing Estate Uyo?” I asked.
“Yes, this is Ndifreke”. She answered.
“Dear madam Ndi, I got this disturbing information regarding an incident in your school today, 10th January 2022, wherein you have been accused of beating your student – Udeme and causing serious bodily injury to her. I want to hear your own side of the story. What happened?” I asked.
“I cannot speak on the matter. I will sue you for intruding into my privacy. I am a mother, a wife and a woman. I did not act alone. I acted on behalf of the school. The school would respond officially. Bla..bla..bla.” Ndifreke answered. Then the phone went blank. I continued to hear crackling noises at the other end…. Then I hanged up.
From her tone, it was very easy to deduce that I just spoke to a wickedly cruel monstrous and unapologetically merciless child bully. I could not imagine myself caught up in this sort of story, akin to the recent shenanigans in Dowen College Lagos. Or the Deeper Life High School Uyo. I needed to get to the root of this. I called up my relations and asked them if they would wish to tell this story to the world. They consented and sat down with me to bare it all…
Ndifreke accosted Udeme this morning at school, accusing her of violating the school’s dress code. The charge was that her school uniform was too short, and goes against the Bible, which (according to Ndifreke) forms the moral pillar of the school. She wanted to strip the child down. She does it to other students. The child tried to run away. Ndifreke descended on her, using every weapon within her reach: cane, stick, planks, etc. From the head to her back, shoulder, thighs, legs, etc. There were bumps, blood and bruises. She looked like a lucky survivor, out from a bombed-out rubble in a war zone. The head bulged out. The eyes blood-shot. He skin peeled here and there, lacerated and bleeding. She left the school by foot and in pains, and walked home by foot, several kilometers away. Alone. With no mercy. Or money. Or pity.
The mother who dropped her off only a few minutes earlier, could not understand the turn of events. She literally ran mad. My child? Who? How? Why? Questions. More questions. No answer....
I am told that King Solomon Secondary is a notorious haven for child abuse. I am told that stories abound in the schools’ WhatsApp group of similar outrageous incidents, wrought on female students by the belligerent Mrs. Ndifreke, who operates above and beyond the law, and whose conduct goes unchallenged. I could visualize her cold-heartedness from my little phone encounter with her this night. She was neither remorseful nor contrite. She sounded bellicose and haughty. She must have gulped from the forbidden jar of intoxicating raw naked power, luxuriating with the self-assurance that the authorities which should regulate the conduct of schools, are too impotent and too lethargic to act. She loathes the idea that she broke the Child’s Right Act by physically harming a child that was left under her paid-care, on the first day at school. After the Christmas break - the symbolism of love itself.
I will let the pictures and videos that follow, do the rest of the talking. I know that the parents of Udeme, reported the abuse to Ewet Housing Police Station, which issued an extract for medical assistance to the victim. I am adding my voice to condemn this unconscionable act of disproportionate violence by yet another school, on the body and flesh of the girl child. I call on the authorities, especially the government of Akwa Ibom State to swing into action, arrest and prosecute all those involved in this crime and take every action necessary, towards saving our schools from continuing to serve as slaughterhouses for our children.
I know I have supported the use of strong disciplinary methods in schools in the past, to help mold the character of the child. But I never supported any form of bodily injury or breaking of the law to harm somebody’s and anybody’s child in the name of discipline. It happened to my own very dear and precious friend, Udeme, as she spends this night in the hospital. Today ……
While reacting to the claim, King Solomon Secondary school alleged that Mel`s account is an exaggeration of what happened. The school confirmed the incident and also said that it was centered around the student wearing a short school uniform but also accused the student of rebuffing and muttering offensive words to the staff.
Here is what they said
“On Monday, January 10, 2022, the
resumption day of (the) the second term for the 2021/22 session, a female
student in SS3 was spotted coming to school with (an) inappropriate dress, a
skirt with (an) edge above the knees.
“One of our staff, Mrs. Ndifreke Etim, who is a member of the Management Board, accosted her on grounds of the wrong dressing, but the said girl rebuffed, muttering offensive words to the staff, a behavior that prompted the use of cane on her,” Ubong Akpan said in a statement on Tuesday."
Responding to the claim made by the school, Mel wrote;
RE: THE SORDID COLD-BLOODED ABUSE
OF THE GIRL-CHILD IN KING-SOLOMON SECONDARY SCHOOL UYO, AKWA IBOM
Ordinarily, I would not have
continued to join issues with the owners, Management, and Staff of King Solomon
Secondary School – Uyo, over the now-viral case of child torture, abuse, and
molestation which I painstakingly reported two days ago, and which is
attracting the attention of relevant law-enforcement agencies.
I have however been forced out of
that self-imposed hiatus to issue this statement, by the hurriedly cobbled
self-indicting Press Release, issued by the school today, 12th January 2022,
signed by one Obong Ubong Akpan who claims to be the Principal of the school
wherein, my name was copiously mentioned.
I have taken time to parse the
release and I make bold to state as follows:
1. I do not know the proprietor,
staff, or owners of King Solomon International School. Not the least Mrs.
Ndifreke Etim and so, I have nothing personally, against them.
2. The story of the abuse of
girl-child Udeme which I broke, has just been validated by the school as true,
by the confessions contained in the said press statement.
3. Specifically, paragraph two of
the press statement, reproduced as follows, says it all:
“On Monday, January 10, 2022, the
resumption day of the second term for the 2021/22 session, a female student in
SS3 was spotted coming to school with an inappropriate dress, a skirt with an edge
above the knees. One of our staff, Mrs. Ndifreke Etim who is a member of the
Management Board accosted her on grounds of the wrong dressing, but the said
girl rebuffed, muttering offensive words to the staff; a behavior that prompted
the use of cane on her.”
4. The use of cane on her for
getting to school with mini-skirt and muttering offensive words against a
Management Board member is exactly the unarguable validation of the truth,
regarding the culture of coldblooded callous child abuse, laceration, torture,
injury, etc., which the school and her Management have normalized.
5. Their obstinate refusal to
understand that the brutality visited on citizen Udeme by them, is against the
laws of the land and runs contrary to the UN convention on the rights and
protection of the child, Nigeria’s Child Rights Act (CRA), and other laws
enacted to protect children from bullying, torture, battery, cruelty, and abuse
speaks volume about the sort of horror under which children exist in the school
and their minds.
6. More specifically, I wish to
remind King Solomon Schools to find time to study the statutes, vis-à-vis their
responsibility to the children whom they are paid and licensed to teach. The
following clauses in the Child Rights Act (2003) readily come to mind:
NIGERIAN CHILD RIGHTS ACT SECTION
11.
Every child is entitled to respect
for the dignity of his person, and accordingly, no child shall be:
(a) subjected to physical, mental
or emotional injury, abuse, neglect or maltreatment, including sexual abuse;
(b) subjected to torture, inhuman
or degrading treatment or punishment
(c) subjected to attacks upon his
honor or reputation;
NIGERIAN CHILD RIGHTS ACT SECTION
221. Restriction on punishment
(1) No child shall be ordered to be
(a) imprisoned; or
(b) subjected to corporal
punishment or
(c) subjected to the death penalty
or, have the death penalty recorded against him.
7. By trying to turn the story
against me as one Celestine Mel and exonerating the assailant/child abuser –
Mrs. Ndifreke from blame, whom the statement venerates as one of our best and
does not deserve the unpleasant tags on her personality I dare say, King
Solomon is still living in the fading illusion that the school and her
promoters are above the law and would continue to promote their culture of
violence based on so-called high moral standard with zero tolerance for
indiscipline without regrets.
8. The physical torture of citizen
Udeme, no matter her offense, whom they admittedly and wickedly bruised and
scarred, has done more damage to the already dented image of the school than I
could do.
9. It is not true that the school
took any steps to reach out to the parents of the victim to assuage the hurt
and trauma that they visited in their child until I broke the story. Indeed,
they started running from pillar to post after it became obvious yesterday that
my expose would turn the world's attention to their reprehensible (and
unlawful) modus operandi. They have sent several emissaries to me to pull down
the story to protect the investment that the late proprietor made in school. I
have all the conversations recorded in the clouds and would publish them at the
appropriate time if the need arises.
10. What I have nor heart is what
they would do to re-orientate their abusive board members on modern child care
techniques and penance for the callous brutality on citizen Udeme.
10. The public should note that I
reached out to the school on the night of 10th January 2022 (12 hours after the
incident) to hear their side of the story for balance, but Mrs. Ndifreke
roundly and arrogantly rejected the opportunity and chose rather threaten me
with court action if I dared publish this damming expose. I published this
story after I was convinced that they broke the law and were cruel.
11. This entire issue means so much
to me (a proud father of tender kids myself and the son of a teacher who was a
strict disciplinarian himself) and I would never stand anyone who brutalizes my
child the way Mrs. Ndifreke did, no matter the provocation. Torture is not
discipline. Hurt is not morality.
Finally, I
undertook this project intending to spark frank conversation about these
accepted abusive practices, to draw global attention to the scourge of child
abuse in our environment, and to let people know that we have left the
barbarian age long ago. Torture and molestation that still exist in our school
system is not only injurious to the child but breeds further violence which
metastasizes to create the violent society we all live in today. More so, it is
a crime. It is unthinkable that a licensed school would admit publicly (in this
century) that it used the cane on a 16-year old because she wore skirts above
her knees and muttered abusive words to management staff to the extent of
lacerating her body; and is gutsy enough to claim that the public should
disregard any publication seeking to discredit our school as it is our
continued vision to raise responsible individuals in the society, give value to
the education system as well as relentlessly advocate for the right of every
child. Everyone concerned with this dastardly act must be punished to serve as a
deterrent to other schools, who make violence against children their go-to
pastime. We shall get to the bottom of this.
