Suspended student cries, demands punishment for school, teacher

The suspended 14-year-old student of Great Esteem Secondary Private School located at Akeukewe Street, Ijeshatedo, Lagos State, Ms. Onyinye Nwakaeme, has cried foul over her suspension, demanding that the school authority as well as the affected teacher, deserves to be punished as well.

She also demanded that she should be reinstated back to the school, as she did nothing wrong.

Onyinye, who is in Senior Secondary three (SS3), was suspended on November 17, 2016, after she was seriously beaten by her Economics teacher, Mr. Sunday Adeshina, which left bodily injuries on her after bleeding for hours.

While narrating her ordeal, she said:  “We were in Economics class that day and I was busy copying note, because I had just returned from my father’s burial and being behind schedule, I used every available time to copy my notes, since I had a lot to write. In the course of this, the teacher saw me and called me out with some students, claiming that we were making noise and asked us to explain what he had been teaching.

” I didn’t get the question right because I was really not paying attention to him. Out of anger, he started flogging me. He flogged me to the point that I was bleeding from my head and he didn’t stop. Even when the proprietor asked him to stop, he was fierce and wanted to flog me more.”

But according to the school’s Proprietor, Pastor Rotimi Olu Joseph, Onyinye was suspended because she was rude to the teacher; not only by talking back at the teacher, but by also refusing to serve her punishment as instructed, adding that she went physical with the teacher.

After reporting to her family, the proprietor claimed that Onyinye’s family members came to the school with violent thugs.

“We summarily gave the girl suspension because it shows that she is not fit to be in the same environment with us. If they can take laws into their hands, then their ward has no place in the school. Except they write to the school that she will be of good conduct, she will not be reinstated,” Joseph pointed out.

However, Onyinye’s family was said to have arrested Mr. Adeshina Sunday for merciless beating of their daughter. It was said that the beating continued until the proprietor of the school and other teachers intervened.

Denying that her parent brought thugs to the school, Onyinye stressed that, “I got home and reported to my parents about the inhumane treatment he(the teacher) gave me in the school and some of my elderly ones went to school with me to address the issue. On getting there, he was absent from the school till the day was over. We decided to report at Ago Police Station to take necessary measures and arrest him because the school was unapologetic. They spoke rudely to my family and asked us to go to any lengths whatsoever to fight them.”

In his response, Mr. Adeshina said he can’t be blamed for carrying out disciplinary action on his students for disturbing and disrupting his class, saying, it’s his duty as the teacher to correct erring students by beating or punishing them.

Whether the suspension will lead to expulsion, only time will tell, because the school authority is solidly behind its teacher, even as the family of Onyinye is insisting that their daughter was unjustly treated.