…As Teachers Ignore Pleas, Fume Over Lateness To School
The perennial traffic congestion in some parts of Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, has taken its toll on students who are now subjected to various forms of corporal punishment by school authorities for lateness.
This ugly development, which has been exacerbated by the ongoing flyover constructions, especially at Water Lines, Rumuola and Ada George areas of the city, has left pupils and workers at the mercy of employers and school authorities who are not happy with the appear to be suffering the increased lateness to the office and school.
National Network checks reveal that despite efforts by many workers and students to wake early and beat the excruciating traffic on the roads, the earliest they arrive to their destinations have been between 9am to 10am.
It was further gathered that even vehicle owners who either drive their wards to school or commute to work with their own vehicles, are not spared of the lateness melee due to lack of alternative routes.
However, while some employers, including the government have handled the situation with some sense of empathy and understanding, the situation is not the same with what is happening in many private schools.
Worst hit in this gale of corporal punishment for lateness are students whose schools are far from their places of residence, who had to commute a long distance to get to school. National Network also gathered that the offending schools are mainly those located at Miles 3 and 4 whose students commute from places like Iwofe, Choba, Ogbogoro, Elioparanwo and Rumuokoro areas, to mention but few.
“Because of the flyover work at Ada George, I always arrive late to school, even as I leave my house by 6am. Sadly, our teachers would not take the go-slow as excuse. They feel we now have reason to be late to school.
“You can’t believe that we are forced to kneel down for up to one hour”, cried out a JSS 2 student at Community Secondary School, Nkpolu-Oroworukwo, Port Harcourt.
At the nearby Uniport International Secondary School (UISS), near the popular UST Round About, it is more tale of woe for students who fail to report to school at the official hours of 8am.
Some students of that institution who spoke to our reporter on condition of anonymity, said the a teacher, ‘notorious for flogging late comers’ has assumed a duty to stand at the gate to exert punishment to erring students.
The students said the school authority has continued to fume over persistent lateness by students since the traffic situation in Port Harcourt became awry.
One of the students who said she lives at Choba and now spends 3 to 4 hours on traffic to come to school, showed the bruises inflicted on her by a teacher, adding that the teacher came very hard on her because of repeated lateness to school.
Even at the International Secondary School, in the campus of Rivers State University (RSU), Port Harcourt, feelers indicate that the school authorities are equally insensitive to the plight of students who are coming late to school in the heat of the heavy traffic occasioned by the ongoing flyover projects in Ada-George.
Students who come from distant places, and unable to meet up with the resumption hours, are punished by flogging and kneeling.
Some of the affected students who spoke to National Network lamented that the hike in transport fares have forced them into trekking to school, adding that sometime, they do not cover the distances fast enough to be early to school.
Our investigations revealed that commercial transporters have hiked up fares in all the routes outside the Mile 1 and Mile 3 area of Port Harcourt. Consequently, transport fares from Mile 1 to Iwofe which usually go for N100 has now jumped to N200. A trip to Choba-Ozuoba from Mile 1 that previously went for N200 is now N300.
This state of affair has now compelled commuters going far distances, to often trek half way and use vehicles for the remaining half, to get to their destination.
Mr. Isiguzo Uche, who resides at Rumuokoro but does his business at the Education area of Mile One, said life was becoming unbearable for him as he and two wards have been trekking home most of the time since the flyover construction at Ada-George began.
“Government should do something by way of providing mass transit buses to ply the Ikwerre Road up to Rukpokwu. They should equally send some of their buses to Iwofe and Choba routes to curtail the sufferings of commuters.
“Governor Wike’s Taskforce should be fully deployed this time around to control traffic in these routes to curtail the excesses of reckless drivers whose conduct on the road contribute to the ugly congestion”, he begged.
