The Ones Who Watched: Bystanders, Seniority and Speaking Up in Nigerian Schools

In March 2026, videos began circulating of older boarders beating younger pupils in Nigeria. At Igbinedion Education Centre in Benin City, a junior boy was kicked, dragged and struck with a belt. At one point, one of the attackers stepped on his chest.

Not long afterwards, people were also talking again about similar bullying videos from Lead British International School in Abuja, which had already caused national outrage.

The reaction was enormous. Parents were angry. The public was angry. Schools across the country were suddenly under pressure to show that they had proper anti-bullying policies and, just as importantly, safe ways for children to report what was happening to them.

I have already written about the incidents themselves and about what the authorities did afterwards. But there is another part of this story that I keep coming back to: the children who were standing there, the ones who saw what was happening, and the culture that may have taught them that staying quiet was safer than speaking up.

What the videos showed us

The school responded quickly. In its statement, Igbinedion Education Centre said, "The behaviour shown in the video is deeply disturbing and violates the values and standards we uphold." It added, "Following an immediate investigation, the responsible students have been expelled from the school with immediate effect," and promised, "Such conduct will never be tolerated within our school community."

The police response was equally clear. Edo State Police spokesperson Eno Ikoedem told Premium Times, "Bullying is a criminal offence. No one is allowed to beat up and dehumanise someone like that." The spokesperson also said something I think every adult responsible for children should remember: "That is somebody's child irrespective of whatever crime he may have committed."

But the comment that has stayed with me most came from Edo State's Commissioner for Information, Kassim Afegbu. After a government committee visited the school and questioned students and staff, he said, "It is painful to think a child could suffer serious harm unnoticed if not for circulating videos." He also warned, "Students can die as a result of these actions, and the repercussions on their families are grave."

That is the part I cannot get past. A boy was being beaten. Other children were there. And from what we know, the adults appear to have discovered what happened because somebody's phone was recording it. That should trouble all of us.

Discipline or abuse?

In many Nigerian boarding schools, the idea that senior students should have authority over younger ones has existed for a very long time. Seniors send juniors on errands. They punish them. Sometimes they hit them. And too often, this behaviour is explained away as tradition, discipline or a way of making children stronger. So where exactly does discipline end and abuse begin?

A group of senior lawyers writing in ThisDay in the week after the videos rejected the idea that bullying could be defended as discipline. They wrote that bullying "comes camouflaged as discipline, and training for toughness." They were also very clear about the line schools should never allow students to cross: "Torture is not and cannot be discipline, and no student should be allowed to hit any student for any reason whatsoever."

They also reminded schools that they have a legal duty towards the children entrusted to them. "Schools occupy a position in loco parentis," they wrote, meaning that the school assumes a duty of care over the children in its charge. And they made another point that matters enormously: "A system that reacts only after harm has occurred is, by definition, inadequate."

A school cannot call itself safe simply because it knows how to respond after a video goes viral. The real test is whether a child can ask for help before the beating happens, while it is happening, or the first time somebody threatens them.

A cycle that passes from year to year

One of the things that worries me most about seniority culture is the way it can reproduce itself. A child enters boarding school as a junior and learns that humiliation, fear and physical punishment are simply part of the experience. A few years later, that same child becomes a senior, and now it is their turn.

At a national sensitisation workshop on the anti-bullying policy in July, Ayotola Ilori, Executive Director of the Sustainable Solution for Youth and Vulnerable Initiative, described this cycle very clearly. "We need to have these difficult conversations because bullying is becoming generational," she said. "Some children believe that when they become seniors, it will be their turn to bully others."

That is how harmful traditions survive. Children do not necessarily question what happened to them. Sometimes they repeat it because they have been taught that this is what seniority looks like.

Ilori's message was also directed at the children who witness bullying: "We need to be upstanders, not bystanders. Keeping quiet when someone is being bullied is part of the problem."

I agree. But I also think we have to be careful about placing too much responsibility on children without asking what adults have done to make speaking up possible.

From bystanders to upstanders

It is easy for adults to tell children to report bullying. It is much harder to imagine what that actually means for a 12-year-old boarder who has to sleep in the same dormitory as the senior they are reporting. That child has to think about what happens after they speak. Will the senior find out? Will other students call them a snitch? Will anybody believe them? Will an adult protect them the next night?

This is why reporting cannot depend on courage alone. Adults have to build systems that make it safe.

At the same workshop, the Universal Basic Education Commission's deputy executive secretary, Olajuwon Rasaq, gave students simple advice: "If you see something, say something. You can report without being noticed." He added, "Walk to your teacher or head teacher and report what is happening." According to Tori.ng's report of the event, he also said that the government "would no longer tolerate it."

But those words only become meaningful when there is a system behind them. In my experience, that means giving children a confidential way to report concerns and making sure somebody actually checks it every day. It means every child knowing at least two adults they can go to, with one of those adults outside the boarding house. It means teaching children what being an upstander looks like before they find themselves watching somebody being hurt, having clear consequences whenever a senior abuses their position, and being honest with parents when something has gone wrong, rather than hoping the problem disappears quietly.

What parents and schools can do now

Parents do not have to wait for an incident before asking questions. They can ask their child's school what its anti-bullying policy actually says about relationships between seniors and juniors, how a child is supposed to report bullying without everybody else in the dormitory finding out, and who supervises the boarding houses at night. And they can ask a question that may reveal more than any policy document: when did a student last report something, and what happened afterwards?

School leaders also need to look closely at their own traditions. If seniors are allowed to punish juniors, that should stop. If there are practices everyone describes as harmless tradition but younger children experience them as fear, humiliation or violence, those practices deserve another look. And if children have learned that their first response to violence should be to take out a phone and record it, rather than find an adult who can stop it, then the school has more teaching to do.

The ThisDay writers put it well: "Ultimately, the measure of any society is how it protects its most vulnerable."

The March 2026 videos were painful to watch. I hope they become more than another scandal that people discuss for a few weeks and then forget. I hope they are remembered as the moment Nigerian schools began asking harder questions about seniority, silence and the children who stand nearby while another child is being hurt, and the moment schools decided that no child should have to wait for a phone camera before an adult protects them.

References

1. Simon, Ekemini. "Police invite parents as school expels students over viral bullying video." Premium Times, 14 March 2026. https://www.premiumtimesng.com/regional/south-south-regional/863988-police-invite-parents-as-school-expels-students-over-viral-bullying-video.html

2. Sahara Reporters. "Edo Govt's Five-Member Committee Grills Students, Staff Over Disturbing Bullying Video At Igbinedion School." 16 March 2026. https://saharareporters.com/2026/03/16/edo-govts-five-member-committee-grills-students-staff-over-disturbing-bullying-video

3. Edun, Olukunle Ogheneovo, Jean Chiazor-Anishere, Marx Ikongbeh and Mandy Demechi-Asagba. "Bullying: Appalling Failure of Parents, Schools and the Authorities." ThisDay, 24 March 2026. https://www.thisdaylive.com/2026/03/24/bullying-appalling-failure-of-parents-schools-and-the-authorities/

4. Adeyemi, Funmilayo. "Speak up to end bullying in schools, Stakeholders urge students." News Agency of Nigeria, 22 July 2026. https://nannews.ng/speak-up-to-end-bullying-in-schools-stakeholders-urge-students/

5. Tori.ng. "FG Unveils Tough Measures Against School Bullies, Warns of Expulsion and Public Exposure." 22 July 2026. https://www.tori.ng/news/323865/fg-unveils-tough-measures-against-school-bullies-w.html