BULLYING IN NIGERIA

BULLYING IN NIGERIA

Contrary to the general concept of bullying as anti-social, in Nigeria, bullying is a well accepted phenomenon that is disguised as "discipline". Every child in this part of the world can testify to being bullied at some point in their lives although the word bullying would seem strange.
Bullying can be emotional, physical and psychological, emphasizing on the physical and psychological aspect of bullying here. Research has it that most people who were once victims of bullying often times become bullies themselves, and this is the trend behind bullying in Nigeria.

During my high school bullying never existed this was because it was normal for your seniors to punish you for whatever reason they seemed fit, i mean you could get a huge slap for just being on the line when a senior was behind or get to jump like a frog for walking behind your seniors on your way to the cafeteria. There were days too that your lunch money would be forcefully collected because the seniors came to collect their offerings and everyone has no choice but to drop theirs or be beaten for not partaking in offering. Surprisingly we all loved this trend because after the few minutes of lamenting over your lost lunch money or the slap you received few minutes ago your consolation is the fact that you would be a senior too and would definitely get the opportunity to do back to some innocent student whose only offence was being your junior.
The few seniors that did not partake in bullying were seen as the weak by the juniors and they did not hid their disrespect towards them while the respected seniors were those that took out their time to oppress the younger ones. This trend was fun as the junior ones would always sing your praises even after you were done with high school and look up to your standard of oppression as a blueprint for their turn when they become seniors.
The Nigerian type bullying is cyclical with no one trying to end the cycle in their turn, not to mention that we also see bullying as a form of disciplinary training passed on from one generation to another what is only achieved is teaching ourselves that it is acceptable for someone to collect your lunch money or slap you for being in a queue, making it difficult for us to stand up against mental oppression by those in power. We are thought from childhood that those in power can do whatever they like and we can't protest because when we get there too we would get our chance to do back and these bad cycle keeps going on and on.