Most kids have a sense of not measuring up to the level in society. They have to ask for permission to get whatever they want, they’re scolded for making decisions they thought were ok, and they have to endure the frustrations of learning math and sciences.
They are at the bottom of the hierarchy, and they hate it. All they want is to get to a level where they won't need to take permission from anybody. Sometimes, this desire fuels the wrong fire. The fire that generates energy to want to dominate other kids to show just how much of an adult they can be.
Some kids get this energy earlier in their childhood, and some get it relatively late. Of the kids that get this energy early, only a few of them get conscious of it and actually try not to misuse it, the rest try every way possible to show that they really can be oppressors.
I attended a Federal Secondary (High) mixed boarding school. The boys occupied 2 hostels about 200m apart; one a yellow bungalow for JS1 and JS2 built with a quadrangle, and the other, a blue 2 storey structure for JS3, SS1, SS2, and SS3. The girls had one hostel for JS1 to SS3 and it was a yellow version of the boys’ storey building.
My junior school days were brutal. The seniors felt like emperors. Their nicknames were mean, and they hailed themselves like emperors. One guy even had Emperor as a nickname.
Funny enough, the most brutal of them at that time, went by what seemed to be his real name. But the way he was hailed by his mates, still made the juniors(us) perceive him to be Julio Caesar. They lived by these nicknames and they did everything they could to sustain their reputation as emperors. And we(juniors) all thought it was cool.
We would stay up at night in small groups, arguing which of them had a better reputation, or who looked more fierce. Boasting about which senior was your school-father, and how he would save you from excess punishment or errands dished out by his mates and other seniors.
Apart from school-fathers, guardians (school employee parents ask to help look after their kids in the hostel) were the next in line of saviours when bullying situations got out of hand. I had the Vice Principal as a guardian, which was really cool at the time, but she lived like 500m away from the hostel.
JS2 was the better of my junior days because we were the seniors in our little world, even if we had 4 SS3 boys overseeing all our moves. Within the gates of that hostel, were the beginning and end of our reputations.
When I got to JS3, the school changed the hostel arrangements. SS1 to SS3 now stayed in the bungalow, while JS1 to JS3 moved to the storey building. That was welcome; one more year to "enjoy".
Then came SS1. Being in the same hostel as SS2 and SS3 boys, we were subject to all the bullying we could get.
When you're in junior classes, in shorts you look small and fragile, and you're not in the same space with seniors, so there's a limit to the kind of punishment you get. But as senior, wearing trousers, looking tall and strong, it felt like they just wanted to see how much shit they could give you.
In the first term of SS1, I was extorted by at least 5 different people, so I thought I won’t be pushed around or won't need to hide from anybody. Bullshit!
I can write a whole book about the bullying in FGC PH, and I'm sure everyone that schooled in FGCs and other high schools all over the world can too
My concentration started dropping in class because there was always someone to watch out for. I sat close to the windows that had no panes or protectors, so once I spotted someone I dreaded coming towards my class, I was out.
This became more consistent than I had imagined. It's funny now because even in this condition, I would in turn, bully the boys that were my juniors. It was a tradition.
In the second term, I tried to be smart about extortions. I would tell the seniors my money was at my guardian’s, and I didn’t have any on me. They’d ask when I was going to get it, I'd say "by the weekend". When the weekend came, I would come up with some other excuse on why I couldn't get it. We had a slang for this - "Jump-play".
I did this for over a month until the day we were supposed to go back home for mid-term break. It was the end of the day, and I had helped a senior “friend” take something to the hostel. I was in the middle of asking to be let go when we ran into this other guy I had been jump-playing since the beginning of that term. He was so happy to see me. I could see the joy in his eyes.
He thanked this my “friend” for bringing me back to him after what seemed to be years of evasion. I was supposed to be on my way home, but that was the day I received the worst beating of my life. Without going into details, I had to take a shower to wash off all the sand that stuck on my body from rolling on the floor, before going home.
I came back to school after the break and decided not to go back to the hostel. For the rest of that academic session. I spent my nights at my guardian’s, and my evenings playing in the fields with some of the best friends I've made in my life.
We meet in the fields after lunch to play, laugh, and gossip about the seniors until it gets dark. Then they go back to the hostel, while I hike back to my guardian’s. As you can probably predict, my grades continued their downward trend.
I can write a whole book about the bullying in FGC PH, and I'm sure everyone that schooled in FGCs and other high schools all over the world can too.
I and almost half of the friends I hung out with failed the class. I took my result home to my dad, and for the first time in years, he gave my face a swift back-hand smack. He told me I was leaving the dormitory, and I would start going to school from home.
I was pleased with this decision. I wondered why I had to board in the first place when we lived just 2km from the school. I had succeeded in leaving the harsh environment of the hostel, but I had new challenges to face - being in the same class as my juniors.
Anyone that has repeated a class knows this feeling - the shame, the segregation, the imminent insults from the people you used to bully and look down on. Most kids process repeating very poorly. They let shame get the better of them, and they'd rather hang with old mates behind the classroom block than be in the same classroom with the people they once bullied. I’m a natural back-bencher, so on the first day of my repeat, I summoned up courage, and walked into the class. Feeling the eyes of over 40 students on me, I headed straight for the back-bench. From that day, bullying juniors was off my ToDo list, and I never skipped class. Apart from others that repeated the class with me, I hardly talked to my new classmates. I aced my tests and exams, moving to SS2 as one of the best students.
Now my old mates were in SS3. I loved the feeling of being in SS2, and not worrying about a thing. I continued to do well in class, attracting some of the cool kids among my new mates. I made a tonne of friends because I now had basically the same amount of friends in both SS3 and SS2.
The teachers loved me too. I wasn't really sure why, but looking back at my situation, I too would love a kid that repeated a class and emerged as one of the best in the new class.
By the end of SS2 second term (with one term left), my grades were high enough to move to SS3. My chemistry teacher then would tease some of my classmates; “you’re playing around with Uzo, he’s already in SS3 oh!”
While my story about being bullied has a rather fortunate ending, it isn't the same for most kids.
Some kids almost never recover from the degradation they feel when bullied, some become utterly resentful. And if like me, they repeat a class, they find it difficult to make a comeback.
Most bullied kids even leave secondary school with the idea that they'll need to join gangs so they would not be bullied anymore, or so they can now be the bullies. Unfortunately, some end up with more scars than they had in secondary school, and some even lose their lives in gang conflicts.
There's a chance of bullies and bullied children emerging as well-rounded adults in any society, but there's a higher chance that they grow into broken adults;
Adults that have no idea how broken they are
Adults with misplaced priorities.
Adults that have little or nothing to offer society even as they lobby for public offices.
Adults that enroll in various law enforcement just to have the liberty to upscale their bullying practices.
Adults that sit and complain about the situation of things without actually doing something to change it.
There's also a chance that these broken adults realize how broken they are, and fixup.
A lot more can be achieved with less bullying. Self-control, empathy, love, and collaboration are helping people do wonders around the world.
When I was in SS2, one of the worst bullies that graduated two years before then, attended an assembly session to apologize and talk to us about stopping our bullying practices. We(I) didn't pay attention to him because all I could picture was him doing all the wrongs he did to us his juniors.
There were a couple more from other years that also came back to do the same, and they received pretty much the same reaction from most students. I wasn't terrible, but I know I'm truly sorry for bullying junior students in FGC PH.
I'm positive these bullying practices still go on in secondary schools in Nigeria and all over the world, but it needs to be curbed. Kids can't have the kind of control adults have, so we need to support them in any way we can, in realizing that bullying ain't shit.
A lot more can be achieved with less bullying. Self-control, empathy, love, and collaboration are helping people do wonders around the world, so let's try to teach our younger ones more of these. Let's teach them more of this so they can learn how to be innovative and improve continuously.
As kids, we were lied to about being the leaders of tomorrow, but we shouldn't continue that trend. They are the leaders of tomorrow, and it's our civic duty to help them prepare for it.