Popular Nigerian stand-up comedian Bovi Ugboma has condemned the practice of allowing senior students in secondary schools to punish their juniors.
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Bovi, who spoke at the Excellence in Leadership conference at Daystar in Lagos, said the practice is absurd and should be stopped.

Bovi said that it is improper for teachers to give students the power to correct or penalize other students in their stead, adding that it encourages bullying among secondary school students.

“The senior students are meant to guide the junior ones, not that teachers would sit back and tell the senior students that they can punish their juniors,” he said. “In my secondary school years I was mistreated and dumbfounded at how someone one year ahead of me could tell me to kneel down.”

He said, “Empowering students to discipline students is insane, we are crazy in this country and you have no idea, there is nothing normal about it. I can’t imagine that my own child that I gave birth to, would go to school and then I would be told that another student punished him either by flogging him or asking him to kneel down. The oldest child is an average of 16 years, what do they know about discipline, there’s nothing right about it.”

Bovi’s comments come at a time when there is growing scrutiny of the Nigerian education system, which has been criticized for its high rate of corporal punishment and bullying.

A 2020 study by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) found that over 60% of Nigerian students have experienced bullying at school. The study also found that corporal punishment is still widely used in Nigerian schools, despite being banned by law.
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