This happened two years ago.
I had just finished secondary school and my friends and I decided that since we had now graduated, we could take a break from studying. We were not bad children; we all came from homes where our parents disciplined us if we misbehaved but what happened that day was really not our fault.
What happened?
First of all, let me tell you how the school was and this is something happening in many schools today. When some girls get to SS2/SS3, they become emboldened to do all kinds of sexual acts. For instance, students in my class had been giving themselves bjs…blow jobs…yes, innocent looking girls were giving bjs to their boyfrindes and sometimes these bjs were forced.
Yes, it a common thing in school, and many times, the rest of us know about it but what do you do about that….?
If a girl decides to give her boyfriend bj at the back of the class, it is nobody’s business, in fact, we just turn our heads away while they do their thing.
The girls give bjs to their boyfriends in class maybe during prep or maybe before the teacher comes to class. We usually had classes late in the evenings especially when we were about to have a tough paper, like Math or Economics. The day before our teachers would schedule classes for us, to give us quick brush-up’s in order to be sure we were prepared.
That is mostly where this kind of thing happened because on normal days, boys and girls hardly mixed after school hours. We were often in class in the evenings for supervised preps but if not, then at least one teacher would be around but many times, the teachers would come late.
So it was usually during periods like these that these kinds of things go on.
Now, when these kinds of things happened, like I said, the rest of us would kind of go to the corridor or we may even be in the class but just ignore the people doing bjs. They would be at the back of the class, anyway.
So whenever a teacher approached, we would just run into the class, then they would know teacher was coming.
It was this kind of thing happening that some began to say that some girls were forced to do bjs on some boys. There was a particular girl that I heard was forced, by one rich boy but when I asked her, she denied it.
So what was I to do?
She asked me who told me she was being forced? I said I heard, she said it wasn’t true. But maybe she was and she was ashamed or whatever, I don’t know.
The school separated boys and girls but as you know, we students still find a way to do things; the hostels too were separate but there was a connecting door that linked the two.
Even though the door was always locked, some students knew how to pick the lock and cross over; it was usually the boys who crossed over. Maybe some girls did too, I don’t know but I had seen a few boys sneak in and nobody said anything. But if the school ever found out, they would have been punished or expelled!
The classroom area is usually where they did these things or the toilets…yes. That’s where these things happen and sometimes they had sex too, in these places.
Those kind of things still happen in schools, till tomorrow, whether boarders or day students, go and find out.
Why did we not report it?
Report and you would be labelled a snitch! Nobody wants to be a snitch! If you snitched, nobody in school will talk to you, your friends will desert you and I am sure, even teachers will not believe anything you say, anyway.
Some students are like saints in the eyes of some teachers and many of them were rich kids, their parents were big donors and they participated in school activities and it was mostly these students who were chief in doing these things I am telling you. Then again some of the perpetrators too were not rich, they were like me, whose parents are just average.
So how do you report such a person? The teachers would call you to come and say it in the presence of the person, the person would know you snitched; your parents would be called because the person would deny it, then there would be trouble for you…ha please. Nobody snitches.
Anyway, so what happened is that after we finished NECO, we decided to have a party because the school refused to hold a valedictory event for us; they said some of our classmates had destroyed school property. So as punishment, they cancelled it so that was why we decided to do it ourselves outside the school…
I was among those who organised the party, it was meant to be fun.
We went looking for a hotel within our budget, because we tasked ourselves to pay for everything; each student was to brink N5,000 each; but some guys donated more, some N10000, some N20000, these were the rich kids…the untouchables.
We knew how to wrangle such amounts off our parents; and my school wasn’t a poor school…you know, parents paid big!
We paid for the venue, drinks, and food and got our own dj! It was well organised.
Since it was going to be our last time together, I mean our set and we had all contributed money, we told our parents lies just so we could go out and attend the party.
We danced, those who had crushes on one another before loosened up, guys were smooching, grinding, drinking…no adult supervision…I was shocked at some of my mates.
To be honest, we didn’t think anything would go wrong, I swear, at least I know I just went there to have fun after studying for such a long time; I didn’t know some boys were planning evil for some of the girls. You know?
There were also people who were not our school mates at the party but nobody cared, we just came to enjoy ourselves.
So during the party, they spiked the drinks of a few girls; I didn’t know. It was later that they told me. So these girls, you know now…these girls followed them to a room upstairs in the hotel…that’s where it happened.
They raped the girls, a lot of boys raped the girls and they filmed it. I was almost a victim too but I didn’t follow them upstairs because my elder sister had warned me that if a boy says, ‘come and let me show you something,’ she said that I shouldn’t go and she told me I shouldn’t leave my drink unattended, so even when I wanted to go to the toilet, I drank up all my drink and went and when I came back, I got another one. So, I think that is what saved me.
Yes, we had alcohol, plenty of it and some girls who had never drank before were drinking anyhow
Ok, after the party, you know, when all of that rape was going on, we didn’t even know. Maybe the girls were screaming or not, the music was loud, people were making noise, everyone was happy. I left there around 8pm or so, I couldn’t stay too long because my mother would kill me!
Two days later, I started reading stories on our WhatsApp group; this one was raped, that one got drunk, this one vomited, this one was raped by five boys, by seven boys…!
I was like, this can’t be happening…
Some of the girls exited the group, so that means the stories were true
Anyway, I think some of the girls affected told their parents, you know. Their parents reported to school and everything came out. In fact one father said he was going to sue those of us that organized it and I was one of them.
Two of the boys who filmed the girls and released the video on our platform were arrested but you know, their parents were rich…I heard they settled the girls…but some other boys were not even mentioned, you see, people were afraid to name them. These boys are still walking free!
(Series written and edited by Peju Akande and based on true stories)