By Francis   Ewherido
When many of us read or hear about cultism and violence in secondary schools, it all sounds so distant until you experience it firsthand. I was around a government-owned secondary school when I noticed some students and some people arguing outside the school gate. In a twinkle of an eye the argument degenerated into mayhem.

One of the students brought out a machete from God-knows-where and mercilessly descended on one of the men they were arguing with (blood stains were still visible on the road four days later when I passed there). Like the unpredictable Chicago weather, the chaos and violence spread fast to the road. As I made to escape, I heard a big bang on my vehicle. I just kept driving as far and fast as possible from the scene, thankful that the object hit the vehicle, not me.

When I had driven to safety, so many questions started flooding my mind. How did we get here? Secondary school children now go to school with guns and machetes? How did cultism creep into secondary schools? Who is to blame for this mess? The schools? The Parents? Government? How can a boy not more than 16 years viciously machete a fellow human being without qualms. Some people cannot even slaughter a fowl; the only living thing they kill without qualms are mosquitoes!

I wanted to go back and report the matter at the police station about 150 meters away from the school. Then I remembered it was at the same police station a policeman advised me to go and fix my car after a young man had deliberately rammed into me because he was angry that I got to the roundabout before him and was in front of him. It did not matter that I was on the left and had the right of way.

My friend, Ajala Olatunde Tamunoemi, wrote on his Facebook page on July 8, 2015: “When you give birth to a child and fail to nurture him or her well, don’t expect much when he/ she is grown (up). Your child steals, fights, insults elders, instead of you to correct/ discipline the child, you pick up a fight with anyone who wants to… Now your child is 17 years old and was arrested for cultism and armed robbery and you want to blame the university he entered 2 months ago.”

The Bible says: “train the child in the way he should go and when he grows up, he will not depart from it” (Prov. 22:6). Much of the violence in schools and the problems we have in the larger society are creations of the family units. Parents are failing in their responsibilities big time. Sometimes when schools make progress on the formation of the children, the parents undo the schools’ efforts. I was at a graduation of a mission school with a strict dress code. The girls are not allowed make-up, their hair cut low and their dresses well above their chest and below their knees. Then I noticed the alumnae who graduated a year earlier with skimpy and revealing dresses and multiple ear rings. There was a disconnection and I was wondering what could have happened just one year after these girls graduated. But it all came together after the ceremony and some mothers came out with skimpier and more revealing dresses (I know that some of these girls’ natural tendencies might have been suppressed during their time in the school, but nurture does triumph over nature sometimes). Teachers might not be perfect, but many parents are very unhelpful

Surprisingly, some of these parents are the so called social critics and commentators in the media. Mass access to the social media has exposed the hypocrisy in us. People who cannot run their lives are spitting venom at others; people who cannot manage their homes comprising half a spouse and a quarter of a child are the most vociferous in criticizing others who are managing thousands and millions of people, especially government officials. I do not have issues when public officials are criticised. After all, they are our servants and are there at our behest; at least that is what it is supposed to be. Batter them; shred them, if you like, especially when it is constructive; our society would be better for it. But our society would be much better, if we removed the specks from our eyes while trying to remove the logs from the eyes of others (I know Jesus will forgive me for reordering his admonition). Let us all strive to keep our corners clean; that is how the larger society gets cleaned up.

Parents should reorder their priorities, family comes first. Do not bring children into the world, if you are not ready to create the time and make the sacrifice to give them proper upbringing. When you spend all your time pursuing other interests to the detriment of your children, you endanger not only yourself and family, but the larger society.

The government, on its part, needs to tackle cultism and violence in public secondary schools. That some parents failed in their parental responsibility does not mean the rest of humanity must continue to suffer. The other students need to be protected. The good works of their parents must not be allowed to be in vain.

The government should adopt a carrot and stick approach. There should be reasonable budgetary provisions for schools which should be judiciously applied not stolen. Every school should have at least one well trained counselor to interact with and guide the students on both academic and personal issues. In addition, soldiers were deployed to government-owned schools in the 70s to maintain and enforce discipline. While some of them went beyond limit, there was orderliness. An improved version of that scheme should be reintroduced

Finally, teachers in public schools should do their job conscientiously. Many of them abandon these children to do other businesses and this has contributed to the mess in public schools.