2-year-old pupil receives 24 strokes of cane for inability to recite English alphabets

Cross-sections of parents in Lagos State and Twitter users have condemned in strong terms the alleged brutalisation of a two-year-old pupil of a private nursery and primary school in Mazamaza of Ajeromi Ifelodun Local Government Area of the state.

The two-year-old pupil, who is a girl was said to be flogged and wounded by her teacher for alleged inability to recite the English alphabets in class.

The news was broken by one Waka Waka Tailor on his Twitter handle @wakawakatailor, on Friday, describing the flogged girl as his niece.

He also posted the name of the school with the address and two phone numbers as well as two photographs of the small girl with one of them showing various wounds the cane had inflicted on her back and the other in mufti.

According to him, when the mother of the girl, who is his sister, confronted the teacher, a female, she boasted that it wasn’t only the girl that was flogged as several others were also flogged 24 strokes each over the same offence and that she would flog them the more.

He also said his sister told him that one of her other children came back from school (which is unnamed) another day bleeding from the nose also for allegedly flogging her on the head.

He said when his sister confronted the school over the former incident but the school denied having knowledge of the accusation.

“But this one, the school wouldn’t be able to deny it as there are marks of the flogging on the girl’s back,” he said.

Reacting, some parents condemned the act, saying both the teacher and the school owner must be sanctioned for dehumanising the innocent girl.

Similarly, one of the Twitter users, Blessed Beyond Measure, said in his response that “2-year-old that should just be enjoying their lives? This is what happens when there is no government to regulate things. Many private schools shouldn’t be open in the first place and many people have no business being called teachers. That nonsense school should be closed.”

Another one, Abdullah, @oshokeab, said “Some people just wake up and decide to become school proprietors without having the necessary experience and recruit all manners of people that are so quick to transfer their family or personal issues on their students as teachers.”

Efforts to reach the school were unsuccessful as several calls made to the two provided phone numbers on the signpost of the school didn’t not go through.

When asked for the state Ministry of Education’s reaction, the head of the Public Affairs Unit of the ministry; Mr Ganiu Lawal said the ministry was not aware of such incident as of the time of filing the report.

About 6, 795 and 2, 792 people had so far re-tweeted and quoted the tweet respectively as of 5.30 pm.

Courtesy (excluding headline) Nigerian Tribune