For the first time in my life I perceived the conc smell of tear gas……………and it wasn’t funny. Questions sprung up in my head as the smell took over me. I asked myself if chickens could stand up for themselves and fight against them being massacred on christmas, I asked myself if little children could actually collect the belts, used to flog them, from their parents while being beaten and use it to flog their own parents back. I had an answer and that answer is the reason for the violence tonight 19th of march 2014.
The vice chancellor unknowingly and slowly accumulated kegs of gun powder and handed the students the matches and lighters when he introduced new rules that sent the bowen student community into an unending phase of silent complaint. ‘Ohhhs’ and ‘aahhhs’ in chapel became constant after every announcement of a new rule and specific rules such as the banning of take away packs and the introduction of breakfast, lunch and dinner times, left so many people so perplexed that some unknowingly staggered out of the chapel, confused, after this new rules were announced in the chapel a few weeks ago.
The words of complaints of students slowly filled ‘book’ after ‘book’ of anger as they were stacked continuously in an imaginary library of violence. From small books to textbooks as the problem of water sprung up among other problems such as the problem of electricity supply that finally filled the shelf. On the morning prior to the outrage, students had to go on an ‘adventure’ to search for water. Many students got back to the hostel with empty buckets, those that found water protected it, as they walked slowly like zombies back to the hostel, as if their lives depended on it. The absence of light added pepper to our injuries as students wondered whether the expensive school fees did not cover electricity supply. Some students were even found using torchlight to read in the school’s library and THIS made me ask myself what century we were actually in.
The outrage started in John Hall where it was reported that some gadgets including an ipad, a blackberry z10 and some laptops got spoilt this evening at around 7:30pm by the flunctuating power supply. This pushed the students of john hall over the edge as they started throwing louvre blades, destroying dustbins, breaking doors , attacking the portahs, among other unspeakables. Just as we thought it was about to end, the other halls, luke followed by mark and matthew, became possessed with the spirit of violence.
The outrage continued as the angry students attacked security guards, set their motorcycles on fire, vandalized the both school complexes as they went on smashing windows and unleashing dragons imprisoned in them for so long. The peak if it all was when the angry boys decided to progress towards the main campus. With the way they dressed, they could have been confused for militants and the Boko Haram as they tied black cloth around their faces and were bare chested with sticks with which they used to show their aggression. They ran steadily toward the main campus where the main female hostels are and at that point, the few sane students that watched the drama unfold began to pray………………….
As we expected but prayed against, they entered the female hostels but only proceeded to damage the hostel louvrers among other things. Some female students also joined in the protest as they refused to be left out. Halls such as Laosebikan hall (known as LAS), AGA, courtsey unit office and the Administration block were not left unharmed. A fire was started right in front of the female complex and the flames which tried its best to drive the thick darkness away could be seen from a far distance.
It was reported that some of the students attacked one of the school’s chaplains. Witnessses report that the group of boys saw the chaplain in his car and initially hesistated before their sanity gave way to insanity and so, attacked him, busting his car tires, smashing his car windscreen and mocking him with disrespective words. A girl at the scene that tried to take pictures was simply made to cry and give up with a few slaps. Students walked the streets with cigarettes in between their hands without fear. Now it was the time for the school management to fear, not them.
Students that reached the school gate went out of the school premises and went back in at free will, until sirenes of the mobile policemen brought them back to their senses. Students were seen running helter skelter as the police men drove into the school and started shooting into the air. Some took refuge in the dirty gutters, some ran into the female hostels while others found their way into unfriendly bushes scattered around the school. The very few that had the liver stood though they were obviously high on something, either anger or weed.
That was when I began to perceive the tear gas which the police men had thrown to disperse the mob. My eyes began to pepper me and I saw many other students begin to rub their eyes too in discomfort. I knew that that was our very first punishment. Others were definitely on their way, the vice chancellor would make sure they arrived quickly. But the question that rang through my mind as my phone rang, my dad calling me, was ‘Who will be spared?’
Some students were caught in the act and these ones shall be the matyrs of today, 19th march 2014. Some may call them stupid and indisciplined, others may call them Generation Changers.
#jokotoye#
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