Why does the Nekede Poly girl deserve punishment?

on Tuesdaywrote a lawyer to the management of the Federal Polytechnic Nekede, Owerri, Imo State, apologizing on behalf of Ogechi Okoroafor, a graduating student of the institution.

A day earlier, Miss Okoroafor posted a video on social media attributing her graduation to God and her genitals. The video was immediately condemned by Nigerians, who are largely moralists, at least in public. No matter what people do at home, there are certain acts, discussions and topics that are traditionally not allowed in Nigeria. One of them discusses illicit sexual excesses, especially when they come from a woman. Call it proof of Nigeria’s patriarchal disposition and you’d be right, but men sometimes wear these things as a sign of achievement, but this society frowns on women who boast about what they’ve been doing under the sheet. It’s almost horrible.

So the institution, rightly shocked by the viral video, issued a statement promising to investigate the matter and impose sanctions on the lady if found guilty.

A letter from this lawyer, Ikechukwu Nwaopara, apologized and explained that the lady had caught a slip of the tongue while trying to acknowledge God and her father. He sought a fair trial for his client during the institution’s investigation and offered to represent.

But as the investigation progresses, it is important to deconstruct this event that suddenly brought the institution and its graduates to the attention of the public.

There is a debate about whether the lawyer’s explanation is an afterthought or not. But this point is neither here nor there. What is important is that the young lady made a video that attracted attention and brought the college into a negative focus. If this was a slip of the tongue, how did she not realize and correct the mistake? Anyway, the damage is done. And Ogechi Okoroafor would have to pay for her misjudgment and drag along some accomplices.

For example, many Nigerians, including a politician and former alumni of the institution, asked the school to punish the graduate. And that’s okay. It should, all things being equal, stop others from going down the same path.

However, given our society’s tendency to ignore the already devastating leprosy in favor of merely emerging symptoms of ringworm, the big question would be: deterrence to what? If an investigation revealed that the young lady had indulged in sex for high marks, would punishing her deter others from participating in the act, or from speaking up about the act?

There are the two things we need to keep in mind with this video. The first is the probability of the incident of sex for numbers, while the second is the audacity to give in to this act of compromise. So, by punishing the girl, which of these two are we hoping to deter others from?

For the first point: sex for numbers is a phenomenon all over the world, however illegal and anti-social it may be. Societies where law and order prevail and people are aware of the rights of others have dealt with evil better than others. Even Nigeria has prosecuted some university teachers and the courts have convicted them of sexual harassment and student victimization. All in all, this is a global problem that will likely continue as long as men and women exist. People have power over each other and there are lazy students and predatory teachers who are prone to compromise. That’s how it is.

The second is what motivates an adult woman to attribute her performance to this unconventional strategy. People engage in many illegal practices to achieve goals, but the courage not only to confess, but to boast about such things is another level of courage and daring. Now lawyers and Miss Okoroafor argue that this was a mistake. But even if we choose to accept the latter point of view, the video still stirs the mind about certain things in Nigeria.

The first of these is about the quality of education students receive in Nigeria. Firstly, administrators and planners in the Nigerian education sector need to realize that tertiary education is not for every Nigerian child.

Some children in the country are not endowed with the ability to attend formal tertiary institutions, thrive and become useful. And if we force such students into these institutions, they will do everything they can to circumvent the system, graduate and become a nuisance to society.

So what’s the alternative? The country should take to heart the issue of vocational and other less formal ways of educating people with less flair for academics. Leaders of the country should create and fund institutions where citizens can earn certifications, which may even be equivalent or fundamental to degrees. This will reduce stress for many students who attend colleges and universities due to societal pressures.

The discussed video also shows that higher education in Nigeria puts people under great stress! From the joy on her face and words like “this Nekede stress ends today… it can only be God o…”, in this video, the tedium of pursuing a tertiary education in Nigeria becomes apparent.

For many students of higher institutions in Nigeria, these facilities are a burden rather than a place of learning. From the quality of education, which has declined as most people become teachers because they have nothing else to do, to the facilities, curriculum and methods of instruction, tertiary education in Nigeria leaves much to be desired. They pay little or no attention to the intellectual development of the students, and the country sheds thousands of unemployed graduates every year.

The third is the growing craze for popularity among Nigerians. Since this video went viral Monday, people have postulated several possibilities. One of the most astonishing is the chance that the lady in this video made this claim just to “trend!” This means that it is possible for a lady who has not even slept with a single teacher to make a video with such claims and post it to draw attention to herself and gain a following on social media.

And as strange as this sounds, there have been such cases. Yesterday a friend reminded me of a 2019 scandal involving a certain Blessing Okoro, who is now a Instagram feeling.

This lady recorded a video claiming to own a house that did not belong to her. She was busted and disgraced but then she got attention and is a celebrity advising more honest Nigerians about their lives! So the question is to what extent do people crave attention and cheap popularity?

Finally, Nigerians need to understand that we are throwing public morality to the dogs. Until recently, people engaged in and kept their unwanted practices private. In doing so, they saved the public from obscenity and kept their own public faces.

But this will quickly become history. People wake up one day, jump on their social media accounts and promote things that are detrimental to the health of society. Prostitution, drug abuse, obscene display of wealth and even illegal ways to acquire that wealth find their way into the public space without control. This misleads many young people into thinking of ways to quickly transfer wealth to a crime den where no one is safe. But more than that, it tells of a worrying future where neither personal integrity nor collective dignity matters.

Twitter: @niranadedokun