PUNCH
Lead British International School Abuja, which has been in the eye of the storm over viral videos of bullying involving some of its students, has been shut for three days.
The shutdown order was issued on Tuesday by the Minister of Women Affairs, Uju Kennedy-Ohaneye.
The Public Relations Officer of the FCT Education Secretariat, Kabiru Musa, confirmed that the school had been shut down by the minister.
“Yes, it was shut down by the honourable Minister of Women Affairs for 3 days,” Musa in response to a Whatsapp message by one of our correspondents.
A staff member of the school, whose name could not be ascertained as of press time, had earlier announced the shutdown of the school by the minister.
The PUNCH reports that an X user, @moooyeeeee, had on Monday night posted two videos of a female student of the school being repeatedly slapped by another female classmate.
The user called for justice for the victim. Since they were posted, the videos have drawn the wrath of many users of the microblogging platform, who condemned the incident and called for the school authorities to investigate and punish the culprits.
A third video depicting a separate case of bullying at the Lead British International School, Abuja emerged on Tuesday.
In the new video posted on Tuesday, some male students in the school’s uniform are seen surrounding another boy who appears to be in casual attire.
A student slapped the boy, who was on his knees, and then some of the other boys who were gathered appealed to stop the ‘bully’ from further harming the boy, who was later whisked away in the nine-second video.
An X user, @PopoolaJoke4, who posted the video wrote, “No be the same school?”, in response to the first viral video of bullying in the same school that was released earlier.
In one of the videos of the minister’s visit, the representative of the school was heard saying, “By the request of the Minister of Women Affairs, we are Nigerians who respect rules and regulations and we are under the law because our school is actually recognised and our school is under the Federal Capital Territory, and we are registered and based on that, Lead British International School, Abuja is hereby shut for three days.”
As of the time of filing this report, our correspondent could not ascertain whether the FCTA would use the occasion to investigate other private schools in which alleged cases of bullying take place in the FCT.
