Bedbugs of education – The Nation Newspaper

The leaders of today seem to be in a trance of leadership, forgetting that there are certain people called the youth who are supposed to be the leaders of tomorrow. Well, tomorrow is yet to come since leadership in this part of the world is a recycling of past leaders, old and overwhelmed. Sadly, the fortunes of the nations education sector continue to dwindle amid sexual harassment, poor academic infrastructure and unhealthy learning environment, among others.

If insecurity continues to affect the land, then our chances to quality education is limited, not only in the hands of bad leadership, but also threatened by blood sucking insects called bedbugs.

We are called future leaders, yet we (students) end up as hosts to this blood -sucking insects. I am faced by the plague of this tiny creatures in our school hostels, rather the human predators themselves who prey on our hopes and ambition of being future leaders by paying little or no attention to the cries of the young ones in their academic pursuits.

It doesnt cost much yet you pay heavily to study on a bed infested with bedbugs. From the Federal schools to the private schools, you can ask the students of our prestigious institutions what makes their night a living hell, after series of bite and infection from the tiny creatures in the beds of their hostels. This has been on for some years now and its still a nightmare. One of the protesting students of University of Lagos lamented: We sometimes wonder who owns the room, we or the bedbugs? as life in the hostels have become a struggle for survival.

Shockingly, our private universities too are affected. After paying millions of naira to get quality education, students still get hostels besieged by bedbugs. Authorities should take urgent action.

A 400-Level student of one the the most expensive institutions in Nigeria publicly cried out for help after series of complaints to the school and negligence from the side of the uncaring administrators or welfare providers. The student who pleaded anonymity revealed that the lower hostels of the school are reserved for the students who pay their tuition fee late and these hostels are dominated by the blood sucking parasites.

The bedbugs of education are not only the tiny creatures as there are human bedbugs in our schools with gigantic offices for carrying out their evil deeds. These bedbugs called sex for grade lecturers bully students into sex for certain marks or grades. It gladens the heart that the BBC exposed the randy lecturers in their recent documentary featuring an investigative journalist who pretended to be a student and a lecturer in the University of Lagos, who under the guise of helping the supposed innocent student sexually harassed her.

Facts emerged that the shameful act has been on for a while now with the knowledge of other lecturers who are co-perpetuators in the obscene act. Without mincing words, all threats to a successful academic pursuit are bedbugs of education.

The saying that as you lay your bed so you lie on it therefore comes to mind. We dont want to lay a bed of bugs not to talk of sleeping on it. We want all bedbugs of education fumigated in all ramifications, human and non-human if we really believe that education is the best legacy, then education must be worth a legacy.

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Bedbugs of education - The Nation Newspaper