Know your rights as a teenager

Sometime ago in Africa, people were taken as slaves. They were badly maltreated by the slave traders. After that era, came that of the military government. So many atrocities were committed during the period. After the military era came the current democratic dispensation. In most countries in Africa, democracy is now the order of the day.

I wasn’t born during the time Nigeria was under military government, but I was told and also learnt from history books what the period was like. I understand that during the military rule, leaders trampled upon the rights of the common man. There was no regard for the ordinary people.

This brings to mind an incident that happened in my school. With all the efforts of the house mistresses who try so much to stop oppression and punishment, one can could imagine a senior student whipping a junior student with a cloth hanger. The senior student said her brutality to the junior student was because she was walking sluggishly when she called her out of the hostel for her early morning clean- up exercise.

What came to everyone’s mind first was, she was neither a house mother nor a prefect, but just her immediate senior. The victim didn’t want to report her to the authority because she was nominated to be a perfect and she didn’t want to spoil her chance. Thank God for some of her friends who felt irritated by the senior’s attitude. They reported her to the appropriate authority who later took the matter up.

I can easily relate this to another issue that baffles me anytime I think about it. Anytime I see military men beating up civilians for no just cause or big men influencing poor individuals when they know they are wrong.

I see all these as ‘big men’ trampling on the rights of the poor. I believe all these should stop. Other states in the country may want to take after or copy the Lagos example by making available A People’s Court where the poor people who cannot afford the services of a lawyer can go to seek redress.

IKEOLUWAPO OLUBANJO

Ikeolwapo Olubanjo is a SSS1 student at Lagos Anglican Girls’ Grammar School, Surulere.