Death of 12yr Old Dowen College Student Sylvester Oromoni: Why I Detest Boarding Schools

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The death of Sylvester Oromoni is the most disheartening incident I have seen on the internet in the past days, it made me wonder what kind of a society we found ourselves, terrible things happen and perpetrators just live a normal life when they should be held accountable for their actions. Sylvester Oromoni’s death brought tears to my eyes and each time I see reports concerning him, it made me cry over and again, seeing his posthumois birthday pierced my soul even more, may God rest his soul and comfort his family, because this is too much for anyone to handle. We are no longer safe, children are not even safe anymore, they are not safe in the streets, they are not safe in churches, they are not even safe in schools, not even safe at home with people that are not family.

This wickedness upon a child by children shows how we are doomed, in a society were their is insecurity, corruption, insurgency and so on, having more children grow into monsters, having bullies as children, having kids like those who forced Sylvester Oromoni to the grave untimely is a a bad omen. I keep wondering what kind of children parents are raising now, how did people raise their children to be ruthless and insensitive to the pains of others? what happened to teaching children kindness and not hate, what happened to teaching children forgiveness and peace?

I am angry and disappointed about so much; with the state of Nigeria right now, I do not appreciate parents living their children in the hands of others to nurture, a lot has happened in the past, schools are not even held accountable for the kids left in their custody and you still see this society or the educational sector worthy of taking responsibility of your children? a society like ours that needs total reformation. Parenting is more, you must be ready, physically, mentally, financially, spiritually to be a parent, people must learn to start paying adequate attention to their children, be mad at people when they treat your children badly, fight for the rights of your kids, protect them from people like Sylvester Oromoni’s murderers.

You must teach your children how to communicate their feelings without hurting others, tell kids that talking about how they feel about things is not wrong or pride, teach them to be more expressive it makes it easy to understand them when things are not right. I am sorry if this deviates from the pains felt by the families of the deceased, I feel their pains too, I am hurt, it took me some days to actually be able to come up with this but I really want us to stop making this mistake. I want us to put an end to situations like this, I also want a complete reformation of the educational sector. I want more good people coming into our society and its starts with good parenting, Sylvester Oromoni was a good boy in the midst of hoodlums, it wasn’t easy for him. However, I do not want more good people dying because they found themselves around the wrong ones.

I have never been a fan of boarding schools, hostels, I grew up to be really scared of boarding houses because I stayed around boarding children and I heard them narrate their experiences in boarding houses whenever they returned, I heard them talk about how their seniors bullied them into washing their uniforms, cleaning their shoes, toss them around like toys, they forced them to starve by taking their provisions, I heard about the punishments they gave to them and how they used them to entertain their friends by making them do ridiculous things, some where raped and mentally abused.

What about the scary stories about a mysterious being called LADY KOI-KOI, I always had nightmares thinking about boarding schools, I just knew boarding school is not just a place for me, I couldn’t have survived it there knowing my personality. Though other kids saw children who didn’t attend boarding schools as poor, but I didn’t care I was just afraid and concerned about my well being, I didn’t want anyone stealing my capri-sonne from me, I just didn’t want to spend a whole day, weeks, months, years, with strangers and be influenced into becoming like them.

This is not the only reason I detest boarding schools, I hate boarding schools even more because at a tender age, I knew when something was becoming a bad influence, I knew that those seniors were bad influence on the other children. I heard the children who complained about the habits of their seniors talk about how they would do more, and be wicked when they become seniors too, you see, its just an era of continuity of wickedness and it won’t stop until everyone gets to show what it means to be a senior student. What they saw as their right, a ritual they saw as normal and yes, the culture of wickedness can’t stop because those kids have been forced into becoming terrible people, the most annoying thing about all these is that they saw them as normal acts, how is it normal to be mean, rude, disrespectful, heartless? how is it okay to bully others? how is it a way of life to be dead in the inside?

My hatred and curiosity led me into researching about why parents take their children to boarding schools? Are boarding schools better than day schools? because I don’t seem to understand why parents take their children to be around people that are not related to them, people with different ideologies and training, I don’t understand why parents leave the well being and training of their children in the hands of their teachers and classmates alone, why take away the childhood of your kids, why deny them of those memories they could have had of their parents? at 18 most children start living their homes, they gain admission into Universities, they start living their lives independently. So why force them out at a time when they are supposed to learn from you? What time do you have then, to train your children and in-still the right morals you want for them not what they have learnt from their classmates and teachers alone.

We live in a cruel world, so you shouldn’t trust your children in the hands of others, just look at what happened to Sylvester Oromoni and the attitude of the parents whose children are involved in this act, their parents are aiding and abetting them, they are protecting monsters and we are at the risk of loosing more innocent people if these children and their parents are not held culpable for their actions. How are they able to sleep knowing that their kids caused the death of an innocent child, and all they could do to remedy the situation is to fly their children abroad, Karma is real! Those kids will be hunted with memories of this. I am even confused about calling them minors, because who master minded this? how did they come up with such devilishj acts? fed him with chemical, pushed him down from his bed, matched him, flogged him with belts, beat him mercilessly like a child who has nobody, asked him to describe his sister’s private and then forced him to stay quiet else they kill him. He would have been 13 and still aspiring to be a pilot but no, they took him away against his wish, a happy and vibrant boy.

Dowen college failed Sylvester Oromoni, the educational system failed Sylvester Oromoni, the hospital failed him, our society failed him, but can we get justice for this child and his family? yes we can if we do not just fold our hands and watch the families of the perpetrators of this act live freely like nothing happened. Something happened, an innocent boy was killed his parents are heart broken, they invested in him and today, he is no more because some kids decided to be God over his life. What happened to Sylvester Oromoni shouldn’t happen to anyone, I can’t even imagine the pains of his mother but the mothers of those other boys can’t feel this because they are the same as their kids, wicked, they raised those kids without love, so they do not understand what pain feels like, but we must teach them what it means to be heart broken by making them pay. #JUSTICEFORSYLVESTEROROMONI

1 COMMENT

  1. It’s sad,demeaning and annoying to hear these stories.
    Mara,I still believe parents alone shouldn’t be held culpable.I grew up in an area where good parents produced bad and frightening kids,those kids haunted the neighbourhood and left their parents to tears.
    The Internet is there,peers are there,the child’s will also there and many more This is beyond parenting.
    Hard to say but in Nigeria,the rich and influential get away with evil.
    May the soul of Sylvester rest in peace,amen

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