On Yahaya Aliyu

Luckily, Yahaya’s fellow students, not privy to the lie, and possessing some integrity,

Folks, my heart is heavy. Two weeks ago or so, an FGC, Kwali, Abuja teacher allegedly beat a 13-year-old student, Yahaya Nuhu Aliyu, to death because he did not do his assignment. According to his peers who witnessed the beating, the JSS2 student had told the teacher, Mrs Dorcas Gibson, that he did not finish the work because he was unwell. She punished him (and the other students who did not do the work) by sending them out of the class to go and weed a portion of land (what ridiculous punishment!). When they returned to the classroom, Yahaya rested his head on his desk much to the teacher’s ire, so she grabbed the handle of a bucket and hit him several times on the head with it. Is this not wickedness? How do you hit anyone, never mind a child under your care, multiple times on the head with the handle of a bucket? Corporal punishment is cruel. And sometimes, like in this case, has fatal consequences. How does it make sense to beat a kid for not doing homework for whatever reason? Would you beat the homework out of him? If you thought they were lying to you about being ill and did not do their homework out of laziness, why not force that kid to sit down and do it? How do parents send their child to school, only for that child to die – quite literally – at the hands of a sadistic teacher? What manner of homework is worth a life? What level of depravity causes an adult to hit a child with a bucket handle?

It is not bad enough that this despicable woman killed a student; she tried to cover up her crime. She knows how to beat students who “err” but is too cowardly to face her own punishment. Per the Daily Nigerian, the school authorities told Yahaya’s family that their son had died of malaria at Rema Clinic and even presented the family with a death certificate listing the false cause of death. “Shebi” a doctor had to sign that certificate? And this doctor (probably compensated) listed a cause of death that they knew to be a lie. Tufiakwa to all of them!

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Luckily, Yahaya’s fellow students, not privy to the lie, and possessing some integrity, revealed the truth to the parents when they paid a condolence visit two days later.  Can you imagine? Hearing that the people to who you entrusted your child not only killed him but tried to cover their sorry backs. The parents confronted the school authorities and meeting was called, and according to the Daily Nigerian, the authorities pleaded with Yahaya’s parents to “forgive all that has happened as fact finding would only lead to displeasure.” Thunder fire all of them! May metal buckets land on all of their heads!

I cannot even begin to imagine the sadness and the rage of the poor kid’s family, and I cannot imagine how traumatised his classmates who witnessed his martyrdom must be. Mrs Gibson was going to just carry on like nothing happened. Carry on teaching. Carry on living. The school and the clinic which tried to cover up for her were willing to go along with the charade, but God said, “Not today, Ma’am.” He pushed Yayaha’s friends to spill. I pray that the teacher, the doctor who connived with the school authorities, the principal of FGC, Kwali,  all get what is coming to them. I hope they all get punished to the full extent of the law and beaten over the head with the handle of a bucket every day for the rest of their lives. They should rot in jail. Nonsense!

I can hear some people say Mrs Gibson did not mean for Yahaya to die. I do not care that she did not mean to kill the child. She meant to do him serious harm and in the process she killed him. That is all that matters.

In 2019, Joy Egeonu beat her husband’s 11-year-old nephew to death for pilfering money (which later turned out to have been taken by her husband). In January of the same year, Ajoke Adebayo beat her 14-year-old son to death for stealing N21,000 from her account. In both cases, the women did not intend to kill the children. All they wanted to do was to teach the children “a lesson”, beat sense into them or however else we want to phrase it. The point remains that once you transfer your disappointment or anger or fury into whatever instrument of torture you choose to use on a child, when your motive is to inflict maximum pain, when the end goal of that punishment becomes the pain itself, it is often difficult to control yourself or to control the consequences. I am going to say it again: corporal punishment is cruel and ought to be banned.

I wish late Yahaya’s family strength to bear this incredible loss. I hope his classmates get counselling (I highly doubt it, because “hope is a thing with feathers.”) As an FGGC Bwari alumna, I wish FGC, Kwali, healing from this tragedy! Our schools deserve better than teachers with anger management issues. They certainly deserve better than a school administration that places very little value on student’s welfare. May Yahaya’s soul rest in peace.