 Welcome back to the Breakfast and Plast TV Africa. We head straight to our second conversation where we look at the issue of bullying in our schools. Now if you have been following the conversation, a student, a 12 year old student of Darwin College here in Lagos State was actually bullied up until the point where he lost his life and there's been a lot of reaction. Nigerians have been calling for justice demanding that this would not just be another case of bullying. We do have persons who will be joining us this morning to help us understand what is going on and how we can actually stop this in our institution. We have Ifi Onyegboli as a media consultant and James Seabor, a legal practitioner as well joining us. Good morning, fine lady and a gentleman. Thank you for joining us this morning. Thank you for having me. All right, thank you. All right, Ifi, let me start with you. You have been following this particular trend and justice for Sylvester. That's the hashtag that is trending across and various space. Indeed Nigerians are actually alarmed. It just feels so so so shocking that we have actually lost some sort of humanity for such an incident to happen. He was talking about a 12-year-old who was bullied and was even threatened that if he talked that he would be killed there. Now Ifi, how did we get to this particular point as a people? That's a very big question that you've asked and it's just the authorities that will be able to give us an answer to that question. It's something that's always been on my mind. How did we get here? How did we lose our humanity as it is? That's just a child. I came in yesterday and I was looking at my little niece who's just 12 years old as it is and I just tried to picture her in the place of Sylvester and I said to myself, people can be truly wicked. Now when children leave their homes and they begin to portray the kind of attitude and the things that we saw leading up to the death of that little gentleman, you will understand that we have failed as parents. We have failed in bringing up children who are supposed to be the leaders of tomorrow and that's what I want to put it. Yes, we might blame those children but who are the parents that are bringing up these children? What is the upbringing like? It is difficult, it's easy for you to take your child and dump your child in school and give them all the money that they require from you because you need to buy this and buy that, all the things that you need to keep them in school. What happens to that thing that we call upbringing? I remember as a child, my parents used to lock us up in the house to say, look, stay, we're going to get the bread, let's put it that way, you know, but when children will be there you don't do what it is that your parents say you should not do. But today we see that children have gone haywire because parents do not even have the time to take care of them. So the school is being blamed now. Yes, there should have been adults who should have worked out to see what was going on. You can say you have a child in school and something is going on with that child and you can't look at that child's face and understand that something is going wrong or something has gone wrong. So people need to answer questions and I'm just hoping that we get to the roots of this matter. All right, let me get to you now James Sebo. You are a legal practitioner and I also know that you also advocate the case of children and their rights. Now before a school is instituted, there are procedures and it therefore would mean that no school can be erected without having a license. And do you think that, you know, there are laws that could protect children? We know of the Child Rights Act, in some state it has been instituted or activated if you want to say and in other states not. But do you think that there are laws that could protect our children from bullying because bullying is something that's been going on for a very long time. Kids have been molested in schools across. We have called for different justice and it can go on the list is endless. So are there laws that could protect our children from all of this happenings in our institutions? Yes they are. We have so many laws in Nigeria. Nigeria is a place where we don't lack laws, but the biggest challenge is implementation. We have the Child Rights Act 2003. Since 2003 implementation has been less than 20 percent. So it is not surprising to see what happened in Doen school. It has always happened. We don't have institutions that are working. And let me also correct the impression that there's rising cases of bullying. These are mothers, gangs. They have always been gangs in secondary school. I was bullied as a child as far back in the early 90s. So it has always been there. We have lost so many children, but because of internet there is more publicity given to these cases now. It has always been there. We've recorded so many cases of death. Either children are beaten by parents and killed, or beaten by teachers and killed, or by fellow students and killed. These are not just cases of bullying, but cases of murder. And the state has always sat down to watch. Maybe the case of a Sylvester will make the state to wake up. Our institutions must work. Our institution, you can imagine that often as we speak, we have children sleeping in hostels without adult minders. It is unheard of. You should not have any child in a room locked up without adult supervising. It is a failure of our system. And until we begin to implement our regulation and our laws, we will continue. We'll know what has happened today or yesterday after Sylvester's death. And we'll have more deaths if nothing is done very quickly. All right. Let me get back to you, Naifi. Indeed, what we hear and what we know from reports is that the Lagos state government has sued our family in college and, of course, the police commissioner, Hakeem Udumansu, has promised them a thorough investigation. But right now, the school has been sued. Is that enough for starters? That's one, iffy. And then again, how do we as parents, how do we as guardians, look out for these telltale signs to know that our children are being bullied? And because most times they are threatened not to speak out. What can we do as parents? How do we look out for the signs? All right. Let me start with your very first question, asking if shutting down the school is a good start. Wonderful start. What it is that the government has actually done. Now, the government needs to disappoint people also by not going behind to listen to whatever any parent or any proprietor is going to talk about because the world on the streets and even on social media is simply that very soon, you know, the rich and the mighty will go behind to speak to government and to see that the school is reopened. We're even hearing that children are taking classes online and they're probably going to write exams online as it is. And I think that is some kind of chagmerity and a frontry, you know, with respect to the school and the part of the school. Something has happened. A child has died. As I said on another TV station this morning, this is a child. This is someone's child for God's sake. It's not a goat. It's not a chicken. It's not a cow. This is a human being. We should have turned 12. And I hear his parents actually celebrated his birthday. Maybe that's their way of coming to terms with the fact that this gentleman is no more. Maybe that's the way they want to deal with it. But that's by the side. The government has done the right thing to see that the school is actually shut down for now. And I think that should last for a long time. The school needs to be taught a lesson and other schools need to follow suit. This school needs to be as a scapegoat. And I'm sure that if we have people who can go into the minds of the children, other children in that school, you'll find out that some things have actually happened and gone wrong in that school. And you'll find that schools are just trying to, the school is just trying to cover it up. So I think government should go beyond that. There should be private investigation. Yes, I hear the commissioner of police has taken to the matter saying that it will be thoroughly investigated. But hey, come on, this is the Niger police we're talking about. Why can't we have private investigators also help us take another look at what it is that happened. People need to scrutinize. They also need to scrutinize the video where the little man talked about the people who lead him. Those people are persons of interest. We need to begin to talk to them. Then as parents, you ask a very fundamental question. How do we tell the science when we see our children to know that something has gone wrong? Your child becomes so, you know, withdrawn. You're asking questions, they can't look you straight in the eye to answer you. Maybe they used to play so much they were so close to you, they could tell you anything. Now you're asking questions, they're just trying to shut you out to say, mommy, don't worry, nothing is happening, or daddy, I'm fine and all of that. It's your responsibility to prove further. That's your child. There must be a way that you get to connect to your child. And when your child is saying something to you, it's important for you to listen. It's important for you to read the signs. There are very unwritten codes that your child tries to communicate to you through. Well, it's your duty, your responsibility to look at them and see exactly what it is that they are going through. Now, let me also bring this to the fore here. As parents, we think that buying our children gadgets and not being interested in what it is they're going or doing in school is the fun. It's the fashion. You want to have time with your own friends. You want to play around. You want to go to parties. Then you leave the bringing up of your children. You leave it to your house help or leave it to the school. You buy them gadgets. They have phones. They have tabs. They are on the Internet. They are hip. They are having the best of times. And you're not thinking about what's going on behind. Parents need to wake up or we'll wake up one morning and find out we have only brought up a generation. I don't want to use the word here because this is national TV. But I don't want to want to wake up and say that we brought up a generation of morons who sit and have other kids bully them. We need to also teach our children about how to deal with bullies. There are child psychologists who can do this. And I think we need to begin to engage their services. All right. Let's bring in James Seabor now and at this point in time. And we'll constantly still stay with the legal aspect and also stay with the fact that government cannot be taken out of the equation. Now, you have rightly mentioned the child right act. And I'd like to understand how this right can be, how this right can actually protect our kids from all of this bullying, molestation that's going on in our institution. Not also forgetting the fact that there are some states where you have this act not domesticated. So can you please take us through that? Yes. The Child Rights Act 2003 is a national legislation that is implementable in all the 36 states of the federation, including FCT, irrespective of the fact that some states have chosen not to adopt it. Because the law is an act of national assembly. It applies to the 36 states of the federation. I do not subscribe to the argument by some theorists that it does not apply unless it is adopted by the state. If you look at laws made by the national assembly that are applicable only to FCT, those laws themselves state so, like the Administration of Criminal Justice Act or the VAP Act, it clearly states it's an act of national assembly. These two legislations are acts of national assembly and they restrict the operations to FCT, unlike the Child Rights Act. So if the Child Rights Act by law is implementable in the 36 states of Nigeria and Lagos state is a state in Nigeria. In any case, Lagos state also has adopted the Child Rights Act. We have Lagos state Child Rights Law, which is even more expansive. But the problem is how do we get institutions as established by law to implement the Child Rights Law or the Child Rights Act as the case may be? What is the role of the Ministry of Social Services in Lagos state? What is the role of the Ministry of Education? And the police force, the juvenile unit, what role do they have to play? Let me tell you, bullying is not just something that happens suddenly. How do we discipline children? We bully children as parents, so they learn bullying from home. So how can government begin to regulate the way we treat children so they become now to be bullies themselves? Children also watch parents fight and threaten each other. They pick up these tricks and display them in school. Children are very fast learners, that is who they are. That's why John Locke said in his principle of tabula rasa, it is a society that writes on children. So why we ask blame parents or blame the school? We also have to organize ourselves as government to ensure that some parents are actually mad. Some parents are mad. How do we regulate parents to be proper parents? Parenting is key. We even teach us also bully children. You see them working with long kids. So children, I remember I was bullied because the people who bullied me felt they were bullied. So I also fell into the temptation of bullying my younger students because just for the form that I was bullied, so I have to bully others. We remember the days of 11-11. We bully for the form of it because we've been trained, we've been socialized to bully younger students. This has to stop. This has to stop. Alright, Yifi, yet again, what is the way for what in all of this? I know before now, we have had, hello? Yes, we can actually hear you. Okay, we can hear you James. Just wrap up your thoughts. I think we lost you. Yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah, you were wrapping up your thoughts before we lost you there. Can you go ahead with your thoughts? I don't know where you... Yes, I'm saying that all we need to do is to implement our laws. We should implement the child rights act and the child rights laws for the states who have adopted it. And for the states that have not, we have to implement the child rights act. How do we do that? How do we now implement it? Because that's the question. It feels like maybe some states, I mean, a lot of persons are not even aware that we have these laws to protect children. And if they are the laws, how do we now implement these laws? The question to ask. We have a national orientation agency. This is an institution of government that should tell us more or educate citizens about their rights, about existing laws and all that. So, they have to. Why are they any salaries? And I don't know what the orientation they are given to people. Also, it should also, every school must have a child safeguarding policy. Every school, the Ministry of Social Services must ensure every school signed into a child safeguarding policy. And that child safeguarding policy and the implementation should be monitored or reviewed periodically. All right. If you let's them have your final words on this particular discourse now. James rightly said that each school needs a child safeguarding policy. Over time, we know that schools have guidance come to law, child psychologists, but what can we really do? What do we need to improve on so that our children can be safe in schools so they can get the education which they went to school for the first place? I just think that we need to do the right thing as a people. Everyone who's founded themselves in whatever position as a parent, you need to parent your kids right. As a teacher, you need to do what it is that you're paid to do. Are you a guardian of these children in schools? You need to do exactly what you need to do. Children should not be left unattended. That you send your child to a boarding school at the age of 10 doesn't make that child an adult. We need to wake up to that. There are some kids even at 16 who cannot even pay for themselves or make the right decision. So you are still a parent. It's your responsibility to check out what it is that your child is doing. And school proprietors, you need to wake up also and understand that because they pay you large sums of money, it doesn't mean that you cannot discipline a child. When a child does something wrong, do the right thing. If you need to do that child, so the parents understand what the issues are, you need to do that. Life is not just about money. Now a child has been sent to his early grave because of what you fail to do as a school proprietor. So we all need to do the right thing. And that's how I think we should sum it up today because we can go back and forth with the blame game. But until we do the right thing wherever we find ourselves, we may just be going round in circles. All right. Thank you so much indeed. All Nigerians have to wake up to their responsibility because some of the tasks come lies on all of us as a people to do the right thing so that we can have our children alive so that they can grow to a daughter and of course be the leaders of tomorrow that we expect them. So a very big thank you to Ifi Oniboli media consultant and James Ebo legal practitioner for joining us under some discourse this morning. Thank you for having us on your show. All right. Thank you so much. We do appreciate your time. And this is where we call it a wrap. Thank you so much for being part of the conversation. We hope you enjoyed every beat of it. We'll definitely come to you tomorrow. If you missed out on any part of the show, it's all right to follow us on Facebook and Instagram. It's at Class TV Africa and YouTube is at Class TV Africa lifestyle. I am Messi Bocpo. You'll have a great Monday morning. And I'm Justin, I've got the name and if thanks for being a part of the show, stand by for the news talk of the hour.