Image caption: Photo used for illustration only
Aftermath stabbing of teacher, Ogbomoso Parapo launches taskforce to combat hooliganism among students
Yinka ADETUNJI
Ogbomoso Parapo Worldwide has committed itself to assisting secondary schools’ authorities in Ogbomoso to curb incidents of hooliganism and unrest among students.
To attain this objective, the socio-cultural association has set up a special squad to patrol public secondary schools’ neighbourhoods to apprehend errant students and intervene to combat violent clashes often fomented by these hoodlums who parade themselves as students.
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The taskforce tagged, “Ogbomoso Parapo Security Group,” would, according to chairman of Ogbomoso Parapo Home branch, Prince Aderemi Faruk Olude, commence operation this week to check the menace which has become endemic among students of public secondary schools in the city.
“We have been going round schools to speak to the students during morning devotion to warn them against truancy and staying out of school premises during school hours,” Prince Olude told ogbomosoinsightonline.com. “The situation has become rampant. You see these unruly students roaming in their schools’ neighbourhoods.
“Our security taskforce will pick up any of them not staying in the school and if anyone is caught with weapons because they carry weapons such will be taken away. So, we are going round to warn them against such anti-social behaviours. We address them on the assembly ground urging them to face their studies rather.”
Olude informed that they were propelled to take the measure because of the escalating cases of students’ unrest in recent times, “We discovered teachers now work under an atmosphere of fear, a teacher was stabbed by a student in a secondary school in Ogbomoso South last term. So, teachers are afraid to go to work to discharge their duties.”
“We feel we should intervene as community leaders to curb the situation. It is not all students that perpetrate these deviant behaviours but few of them and it is those we seek to check. We wrote the state government about the initiative and we got clearance to go ahead. The association will bear the financial cost though assistance from well-meaning individuals is welcome.”
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Further investigations by Ogbomoso Insight revealed that these errant students engage in all manners of immoral and anti-social activities such as gambling, drug abuse, alcohol, sexual orgies, and fight among themselves freely using weapons. They also clash on school basis.
These students have different bases in the vicinity of their schools, where they perpetrate the maladies. Many of those involved according to a teacher who spoke under condition of anonymity are however repeaters who would leave home like normal students but would not join their colleagues in classes, “instead, they constitute nuisance in the environment.”
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The frustrated teacher lamented that as schools they are helpless, pointing out, “the culprits act under the influence of drug and alcohol and bear weapons. How do we confront or check them? And then, there is always the thinking that law-abiding students, who stay in classes, should not be abandoned while deviant students are pursued all around. The situation escalated after the demise of Bintin (a vigilante operative) last year; Bintin was a one-man battalion, feared by the students, he was formerly a member of the WAI Brigade, but later joined a hunter’s association, his death while pursuing an errant student caused an escalation of the problem. So, this initiative by Ogbomoso Parapo is commendable, I pray it will be sustainable.”
In the entourage of Prince Olude are Apostle Samuel Okewole, Comrade Olalere Fabode, Elder Joshua Osuolale and Comrade Adegboyega Ajani.
