The story is available in the traditional and social media because it is an oddity. A 45-year old woman is seen on a video slapping a three-year old baby in a primary school in the Ikorodu area of Lagos State. The baby is a pupil and the woman is the baby’s teacher who should take motherly care of the baby but she is rather behaving like a beast. At 45 years that woman is old enough to be not only the baby’s mother but possibly the baby’s grandmother. There is no indication whether the woman is married or not. There is also no indication that if she is married whether she has children or not. What we know is that the baby is her pupil surrendered to her to take good care of her and help groom her to become Nigeria’s successful citizen. She is a deputy mother to the baby as she is to all the kids in her class but she is not playing the role of a mother. She is rather playing the indecent role of a beast, a brute, a barbarian, a caregiver who is paid to give care to an innocent child but who, instead, prefers to dehumanize the baby. If care is not taken, if nothing is done to restore the baby’s sense of normalcy the baby is likely to think that a school is not a place to go to because that is a place where children are badly treated instead of being lovingly treated.
The woman has been arrested, taken to court and she has been remanded in a correctional centre. Anyone who has interacted with a three-year old baby knows that the baby does no harm to anybody, not to his/her parents, not to his/her teacher. She is just behaving like a baby who by her age needs to be taken care of, monitored, guided, guarded and groomed to grow into a good and decent human being.
The woman, Stella Nwadigbo apparently thought that no one was seeing what she was doing to the baby. She forgot that civilization is here and that walls now have ears and eyes and that they see and hear what people do in secret. That ensures that what people think are secret may not be secret at the end of the day. In the past a lot of these nasty things had been done without disclosure or full disclosure.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) states that up to one billion children aged 2-17 years have experienced physical, sexual or emotional violence in the past year. Apparently a lot of people who read the Bible depend on it for guidance on how to treat children. There are a few quotations in the Book of Proverbs that indicate that children can be physically assaulted. One of them is found in Proverbs 22:5. It sates: “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child but the rod of correction shall drive it from him.” This is reinforced in Proverbs 23: 12-14 where it is stated “Withhold not correction from the child, for if thou beatest him with a rod, thou shall deliver his soul from hell.” These provisions were written in ancient times namely that if you spare the rod, whether as a parent or a teacher, you are likely to spoil the child. But human rights organisations were not available in those days. Now the influence of human rights organisations and medical outfits has taught us that the world is no longer ready to accept “inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” A study done by Harvard University researchers has indicated that corporal punishment like spanking could affect the brain development of children. Corporal punishment is also associated with physical injury and abuse; it is said to reduce cognitive abilities and IQ scores and to eventually lead to mental problems including depression and anxiety as well as increase adult aggression and anti-social behaviour.
As at today, at least 67 countries have prohibited corporal punishment of children globally. They cannot all be wrong. That is why United Nations organs are getting worried about gender based violence (GBV) which leads to injuries which may affect the brain or the nervous system. For a country like Nigeria that has not yet been able to overcome basic primary health issues there ought to be a serious concern about health complications that can come from corporal punishment of children.
A group of 10 international agencies under the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) leadership has developed seven strategies for ending violence against children. These strategies are cobbled together under an acronym called INSPIRE.
Even though Nigeria has the Child Rights Law, the Nigerian child, as we can see from several videos and publications that come to our attention, is still very badly treated by either parents or teachers or peers or even strangers. A lot more needs to be done to protect the Nigerian child from cruel and wicked adults who are supposed to take care of them.
Corporal punishment in schools has been banned in many countries such as Canada, New Zealand, Kenya and South Africa but it remains legal in many African countries including Nigeria. People only get arrested on issues of corporal punishment in Nigeria when, as in the case under review, a minor is involved or a serious injury is recorded. But as a country we have to do better than that. We have to get our name into the roll call of civilised nations, nations that treat their citizens decently, respectfully as human beings. The most notable State Government in Nigeria which, de jure and de facto, seeks to protect the dignity and decency of its inhabitants is the Lagos State Government. It stands guard over the welfare of even young people who are badly treated by their parents on religious or other grounds. It is the only State Government, I think, that has legislation on noise pollution and arrests and gets tried people who seek to disrupt the peace of the public through excessive noise making. We are talking about a city where owambe parties used to be held regularly, public highways barricaded and people’s movement disrupted by party goers. A lot of that has changed and the city has got back a good chunk of its sanity, thanks to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
As we watch the proceedings at the court where the 45-year old woman who assaulted her three-year old pupil is being tried, I urge legislators at the Federal level to work on legislation that should ban corporal punishment in schools at all levels. It won’t hurt us if we join the league of civilised countries. Will it? I won’t.
