Julius OkorieBullying is aggressive behaviour in which someone intentionally and repeatedly causes another person injury or discomfort.
Anti-Bullying Alliance defines it as repetitive, intentional hurting of one person or group by another person or group. Bullying can be physical, verbal or psychological. It can happen face-to-face or online. In fact with the coming internet and social media online bullying has increased tremendously thus adding to the volume of cases of bulling and victims of the virus.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelBullying is a global problem as reports of bullying transcends all races and colours. Bullying also cuts across all strata of the society.
Bullying in schools has practically become a way of life considering the regularities at which they are being reported.
Bringing it back home, bullying in our schools in Nigeria has become a way of life considering the regularity of which incidences are being recorded. It is not an exclusive of our higher institutions where bullies have even found an umbrella under cultism to make life unbearable for fellow students; the virus has also eaten deep into secondary and primary schools.
Types Of Bullying:
Physical bullying can involve hitting, kicking, pinching, pushing, or otherwise attacking others.
Verbal bullying refers to the use of words to harm others with name-calling, insults, making sexual or bigoted comments, harsh teasing, taunting, mimicking, or verbal threats.
Relational bullying focuses on excluding someone from a peer group, usually through verbal threats, spreading rumours, and other forms of intimidation.
Reactive bullying involves the bully responding to being a former victim by picking on others.
Bullying can also involve assault on a person’s property, when the victim has his or her personal property taken or damaged.
Reason For Bullying:
Should there really be reasonable reason for bullying? In a descent society no! But alas reasons have been identified for bullying.
Even if the bullies did not voice out reasons for their nefarious and inhuman act, the reasons often emerge in the long wrong and have been found out to hinge on the following:
Jealousy: Where a bully sees a victim as a threat or having the ability to do what he cannot do. Some people cannot just stand competition. Every good thing done must be seen to have been done by them or else there will be no peace.
Desire to Control: Bullies intention always is to control and manipulate the victim to do as directed thus keeping the victim in bondage.
Influence of Drugs and drug addiction: Some bullies under normal circumstance are lilly-livered fellows incapable of hurting a fly but under the influence of drugs acquire Dutch courage and because of the need to retain that Dutch courage make drug addiction a permanent companion.
Show off: Another reason for bullying is the desire to show off, to boast about ‘running things’ especially if the bully has some resemblance of wealth and connection.
Most times bullies are usually the sons and daughters of the wealthy and the connected in the society. Naturally most wealthy Individuals seldom feel comfortable without using their wealth to intimidate others. Any society where the wealthy and the connected commit offence and go scot-free, intimidate, main and kill people and use their wealth to wriggle out of the toothless jaws of the law is bound to produce bullies levels. Can parents who are bullies themselves not produce bullies and children?
History of bullying:
Though there is no record of exact time bullying crept into the society, it is known fact that bullies have always been a part of any group development, from the earliest civilisations, and in religions, militaries, schools, neighbourhood cliques, teams, families, and companies.
The workplace bullying phenomenon, as we know it today, first entered the public consciousness on the heels of the workplace sexual harassment issue in the early 1980s. During that decade, Swedish psychologist Heinz Leymann was among the first to conceptualise and analyse the act of workplace bullying. In the early 1990s, British journalist Andrea Adams popularised the term “workplace bullying” through a series of BBC radio documentaries.
In 2023 it was reported that about 51.9% of adolescent school students in Nigeria said they have experienced at least one type of bullying, while 27.9% said they were bullies themselves. They also reported that the occurrence of bullying was mainly in the classrooms (75%) and that 58.3% of bullies were classmates.
The Wealthy Connected Fuel Bulling:
Most bullies have been known to come from wealthy and connected families who even when identified often go free leaving the victim and their poor families to suffer the effect of their action.
Effect of Bullying:
Bullying can have a negative impact on students’ academic achievement, self-confidence, and personality traits. Bullied students may feel afraid and weak, and may not want to go to school or participate in activities with their peers.
This no doubt may have contributed to number of out of school children. In extreme cases bullying has resulted in death like the case of Sylvester Oromoni, student of Dowen College in Lagos who was bullied to the point of being forced to drink substance he did not know and which may have contributed to his death. This no doubt has its multiplier effect, as Primbusiness.africa understands that the mother of the Sylverster Oromoni,Rosemary Oromoni has also passed on in the course of mourning her son who was bullied to death in 2021.
Her death follows a difficult time for the Oromoni family, especially after a special court ruling in April 2024 cleared Dowen College and its staff of any responsibility in Sylvester’s death.
She passed away on November 25, 2024, due to complications from prolonged grief and trauma over her son’s untimely death in 2021. why some may argue that since autopsy is not conducted it will be wrong to say she died as a result of trauma and grief, but there is no way the death of that young promising young man couldn’t have fast-tracked her death.
A number heartbroken Nigerians who reacted to the death of Sylvester then bared their minds,
Olori🍒@OloriOfOloris had said “I’ll never understand how a child last words before he died detailed how he was bullied and forced to drink something he didn’t know yet the school, accused and autopsy found a way to completely overturn it and nothing was done. Everybody just moved on. This is wickedness. They destroyed this family! This just ruined my Forday”
Queen_Mehnah @Queen_mehnah had also said “I’m sure those culprits will never stop the habit of bullying because they know no judgment will be made even if a life is lost again😡😡I pray they do that to those covering the evil act😡😡AMIN”
Rosemary Oromoni may have gone but she did not fail to place a curse on those who ‘murdered’ her son “#justiceforsylvester God arise and cut short the lives of those who cut short the life of my son” she had begged God who is the final judge of mankind.
To prove that the bullying menace has permeated into the fabrics of the society a case of seven-year-old student bullied in Anambra State school cannot be ignored and also reveals how the virus has gone even into primary schools.
READ ALSO :Sylvester Oromoni: Five Students, Staff Of Dowen Cleared By Lagos Govt
In August 2024, the Anambra State Government closed Upcoming Star International School in Awka after a seven-year-old student was allegedly bullied and broke her leg.
The school’s proprietor, Uchechukwu Onyeachonam, admitted to the bullying and was questioned by the state Commissioner for Education, Ngozi Chuma-Udeh. The school was also found to be operating without government approval.
Why Bulling continues to thrive:
Recently Primebusiness.africa sighted a memo from the Federal Ministry of Education dated 22nd November, 2024 and signed by permanent Secretary of the Ministry Dr. Nasir Sani-Gwarzo and addressed to Principals of all Federal Unity Schools.
The said memo titled “Punishment for Physical Assault leading to bodily Injury” It states inta alia “The attention of the Ministry has been drawn to the cruel and inhuman act of physical assault that inflict bodily injury on other students by fellow students or group of students. In addition to the punishments in the ministry’s approved Uniform Guidelines for offences and punishment, the Ministry has directed that henceforth any student or group of students found culpable of physical assault leading to bodily injury on another student or group of students will be suspended indefinitely from the college”
This, is part of the reason why bullying continues to thrive in all schools. Indefinite suspension makes meaning to only poor parents who will worry about how their wards suspended indefinitely can continue their education.
For the children of the rich, this is a child’s play. Who cares about your indefinite suspension when the bully can easily be sent to a private school to complete his education, and move on?
He or she can even been transferred abroad to continue his education while the victim continue to leak his wound or in the case of Sylvester Oromoni continues to rest in peace.
The Only way out:
Bullying in schools, in our political space in our society and even in the neighbourhood will never stop if punishment continues to be light and inconsequential.
If punishment continues to look like the free bargain that has come to stay in our national life where people loot the treasure in billions and plead free bargain and return millions and every one goes home. Bulling will continue if we continue to look the other way like we did during the last Presidential election where people were openly stopped from voting maimed and killed for holding different political opinion.
All those who perpetrated such acts were never charged while injured victims leaked their wounds and treated themselves just for daring to exercise their franchise.
Students who bully others are given inconsequential suspension which could be reversed depending on who their fathers are and how connected they are.
It is not enough to suspend a student found guilty of bullying, the student must be barred from gaining admission anywhere else, black listed and barred from holding political office.
If they know that their actions will affect not only their education but also their political position in future they want to think twice. This is important because once a bully always a bully which explains while bullying is also the stock in trade of our political parties and rears its ugly head even in governance and the way we do business.
School authorities must stop this tendency to pretend nothing is happening simply because the bully is a son or daughter of an untouchable who probably shows ‘appreciation’ for ultimate cover up.
Julius Okorie is Chief Sports and Entertainment Correspondent for Prime Business Africa. He began his journalism career with the Champion Newspaper and Sporting Champion and later moved on to Daily Independent and the Nation Newspapers. Okorie joined Prime Business Africa in 2024 bringing on board 20 years of experience in writing investigative news on Sports and Entertainment. His well researched and highly informative articles on Sports Business and general entertainment are followed by a wide range of audience.
