New Telegraph

Kwara: Furore over brutal floggings of Islamic school students

In trending videos which had gone viral, the Management of Misbaudeen Al Islamiy Arabic School, GanmoinIfelodunLocalGovernment Area of Kwara State, were reported to have ordered the thorough flogging of six students of the school, including a female student, for their effrontery to go to a hotel to celebrate the birthday of one of their matesdespitethemoralandreligious teachings impacted on them by their teachers and the school.

 

At the hotel reportedly located in Geri Alimi area, Ilorin, the state capital, the students were said to have engaged in a drinking spree, thereby getting themselves intoxicated from the alcohol they took, allegedly resulting in immoral behaviour, particularly the alleged hugging of the only female student among them, acts which the school management said were contrary to Islamic teachings and injunctions.

 

New Telegraph checks reveal that the pictures of the birthday celebrationwerepostedonlineandthisgotto theattentionof theschoolauthorities through the father of the only female student in the video who informed theschoolauthoritiesandreportedly demanded for the attendant punishmentmetedouttotheaffectedfemale student.

Other parents were also reported to have asked the school authority to punish the affected students in accordance with Islamic injunction to serve as deterrent.

To all intents andpurposes, the floggings were severe and brutal and, expectedly, had caused an outrage among  several Nigerians who watched the videos as some called for legal actions against the school.

 

However, the Management of the Arabic School has risen in stout defence of their action, claiming that the punishment meted out to the students by the school, aside being Islamic, waswiththeconsentof the parents of the affected students.

 

The Principal of the School, Mallam Muheebudeen Asayoutti, who spoke on the vexed issue, also justified the action of the school, saying that the punishment meted out to the erring students was in accordance with the provisions of the Holy Qur’an for someone who drink or come close to alcohol.

 

This, he said, was aside the consent of the parents who actually called the attention of the school to the offences committed by the students and demanded appropriate punishment for the students.

 

He said: “We were not aware of theincidentuntiloneof theparents of thestudentsdrewourattentionto a video and pictures posted on the social media showing our students in a hotel with bottles of beer on their table.

“The parents demanded for the punishment and insisted that the students must be punished in their presence which we did according to the laws guiding such offences.”

An Islamic cleric in the school who craved anonymity said the flogging were in tandem with Islamic teachings and injunctions and they were meant to change and put the students aright, adding that the parents of the students approved the severe flogging.

Hesaid:“Someparentscalledus, blaming us that we were not looking well after the students put under our care and drew our attention to the trending videos. Inthevideos, we saw them in a club house pouring beer on one of them to celebrate his birthday.

 

In fact, a lady, our own student, was with them and they were hugging her.

This saddened us, especially with what their parents said against us. That’s why we gave them that kind of treatment with the consent of their parents.”

 

One of the six students in the trending videos who also craved anonymity said the school was right to have punished them severelylikethat, addingthattheydeserved it and it was in accordance with Islamic injunctions.

 

He said hewarnedhiscolleagueswhowere filming to desist and not to release the video for public consumption but they were adamant.

 

He said: “We were wrong and we deserved the punishment. What we should doistorepentandturnanewleaf.”

YunusOlarenwaju, thefatherof Raheemat, the only female student in the video, said he has known the schoolformorethan20years, while eightof hischildrenhadgraduated from the school because of their standard and discipline, adding that in all these years that he has known the school they never condoned any form of misdemeanor by the students.

 

He said he was the one that instructed the school to carry out the appropriate punishment for the girl (his daughter) after seeing the video portraying his daughter as the only lady among the boys of the school captured in the video.

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