I
attended an all boys’ high school. Started in 1942 by Catholic
missionaries, it was the first such educational institution within
easy reach of my village some five miles away. My father and uncles
had pioneered a tradition that set up the school as a model for their
offspring. The Irish priests who ran the school encouraged sound
liberal education to groom a knowledgeable leadership capable of
effective decision-making.
However,
intellectual rigor gave way to crude physical discipline following
state takeover of the school. After that, everything seemed contrived
toward molding our beliefs to serve the toxic, vicious and
controlling larger society into which we graduated. In a world that
rewards subservience, much is invested in deterrence to critical
thinking and access to undistorted information.
School
authorities were tough on rule-breakers. Students who sneaked out of
school were stiffly punished. Teachers and school prefects used
brutal whippings to maintain order. After a flogging, the victim
could neither sit on his buttocks nor lie on his back without feeling
the sting of the whip long after the punishment.
The
regimen also included suspension from classes combined with physical
labor such as clearing the soccer pitch with a machete. If a truant
mowed the lawn with a scythe, it was usually under the intensely
sweltering sun just so the lesson could be drilled into the
defaulter. The erring students often came off with blisters, which
made using the hands painfully difficult for quite a while.
We
had just survived a civil war of gruesome violence. Most of the
school prefects were former child soldiers who brought to the school
the brute torture they lived by in the military. Convinced that our
all boys’ school teemed with headstrong, recalcitrant students,
school administrators allowed the abuses.
Because
the rules were extremely repressive, only those with a disdain for
authority dared break them. The frightening punishment dished out to
those who violated the regulations mimicked the brutality that was
used by the police state to subdue any opposition. It was normal to
deprive citizens of their rights, liberties and dignity, or even take
out punishment on friends or family members of an erring person.
I
came across on Facebook an experience recalled and posted by Francis
Johnson, an alumnus of my high school. The narrative speaks volumes
of our high school as a preparatory ground for the draconian order
into which we graduated after we passed out of school.
As
I read the story, compelling memories flooded my mind and I felt
strongly enough to share it. The story gives exclusive insights into
some of the shaping influences on my life and helps explain why I
have a deeply ingrained revulsion for states that trample on
citizens’ rights.
I
need to explain a few things here. HOFACO is the acronym for Holy
Family College, the name of the high school we attended. Garri
is a dough-like food made from cassava that is a staple across West
Africa. Okro
is referred to as “okra” in the United States.
Johnson
titles his story “ONE WEEK OF TROUBLE: Memories of HOFACO.”
With minor editing, the narrative goes thus:
It
was a quiet afternoon as we prepared to go to the refectory. With all
our minds set on the garri and okro soup we were looking forward to
be served, none of us knew we would never enjoy the meal. Fear and
intimidation were regular modes of control, but we did not reckon
that these would be served up that afternoon.
Normally,
during the annual addressing ceremonies, riot acts would be read
about the do’s and don’ts of HOFACO, but there were
occasional rules that we hardly knew the consequences until one had
been violated. Administration of punishments to rule-breaking became
occasions to teach both violators and onlookers that they either had
to conform or be ruthlessly broken.
We
had just finished saying the routine “Prayers before Meal,”
and had barely settled down when we saw the School Prefect (SP)
coming into the cafeteria.
Seeing
the SP was such an unusual event that we comported ourselves
accordingly. He wasn’t a guy that we saw often, except when
something was very right or very wrong. As tradition demanded, we
quickly sang the national anthem in salute to his arrival.
Looking
unimpressed, he ordered: “All class two students mount the
stage!” In ten seconds, hurrying to the stage from different
tables, we were all forced to lie down flat on stage. There we were
thoroughly beaten by prefects with canes, belts, electric cables and
even with bare hands for about three minutes until the SP called a
truce.
It
was then that he announced that one of us, Ndede Ebitu, had insulted
his cottage prefect. He then declared that Ndede should write a
letter of apology to be read at same time the next week. While he
was composing the letter, the members of Ndede’s class would
take over all scheduled assignments, such as washing the toilets or
carrying water from the stream to the kitchen.
Matters
simply didn’t stop there. Punishments for offenses like
lateness to the chapel, class or cafeteria were escalated for all who
shared a class with the offender. We were singled out and punished as
a group for one person’s violation.
I
was so upset that I had to look for this colleague to personally face
off with him for the calamities he had caused all of us, but when I
realized who he was, he turned out to be a quiet and easygoing chap
we all used to admire. I ended up rallying my colleagues to help him
out in mowing the V-shaped lawn he had been assigned.
At
the end of the horrible seven days, we all braced up for the main
event — reading of the apology. Another surprise awaited us,
because at our level we had not been exposed to the syntax of writing
English language at school certificate level. There were critical
components of English, such as organization, construction, mechanical
accuracy and expression we had not yet learned.
To
any of Ndede’s sentences that violated one of these four
components, the prefects shouted, “Mechanical Accuracy…
Zero!” or “Expression… Zero!” Each mistake
earned him several strokes of the cane from the prefects who had
surrounded him atop the dining table on which he was forced to stand
and hold the senior’s apology letter with both hands as a mark
of respect.
The
SP ordered that the apology letter be rewritten, this time taking the
grammar rules into consideration. That meant that the punishments to
all of us remained constant for another week!
Finally,
with the help of some sympathetic seniors, he was able to come up
with something that was agreeable to the prefects’ prescriptive
grammar.
For
me, apart from the two weeks of punishment and show of hatred and
disgust from every senior student, I learnt early (from Ndede’s
experience) how to take my expression, organization, construction and
mechanical accuracy seriously!
Imo Ben Eshiet was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Raised in his village, Uruk Enung, and at
several cities in his country including Nsukka, Enugu, Umuahia, Eket and Calabar, Eshiet is a
detribalized Nigerian. Although he was extensively exposed to Western education right from
childhood in his country where he obtained a PhD in English and Literary Studies from the
University of Calabar, he is well nurtured in African history, politics, culture and traditions.
Imo is currently a teacher in the high priests group in the Summit Ward of the Greensboro North
Carolina Stake.