The battered buttocks of the victim
A private legal practitioner has petitioned Matthew Opoku Prempeh, the Minister of Education, to investigate circumstances under which ‘extreme brutality’ was meted out to a nine-year-old pupil of Aristoland Montessori Centre in Nungua, Accra.
Eziuche Nwosu wants the ministry to find out why Samuel Arhin, a teacher at the Center, used an offensive weapon to harm his daughter (name withheld) for failing to do her Twi homework.
“The atrocious and heart-rending marks which speak for themselves point to determined forceful use of an offensive weapon like belt, wooden or iron bar, intended to inflict unmitigated torment and elicit tears of pure agony from a nine-year-old child and this was achieved by the perpetrators who now thump their unrepentant chests in grim and resolute victory,” he said.
In a petition dated January 23, 2017, the lawyer stated that a full probe into the incident was necessary to ensure that the fiduciary responsibilities owed by custodians of vulnerable children are not sacrificed on the altar of oversight as the fate of the pupils in the Centre stand in peril of endangerment by the school, its management and staff.
The document, copied to the Minister for Gender, Children And Social Protection, the Director, Ghana Education Service, Inspector General of Police (IGP) and the Association of Private School Operators, among others, said the victim dreads the prospects of going back to school.
It said “on January 18, my wife and I returned from work to behold with shock and utter belief the gory sight of our daughter’s battered buttocks resulting from violent brutal attacks by her class teacher Samuel Arhin on the grounds that she failed to do her Twi homework.”
The petitioner indicated that for three days, the victim could barely sit due to excruciating pains.
He said the conduct of Mitzi Zormelo, the Proprietress of the school, suggests that corporal punishment of that severity is part of the correctional and disciplinary regime in the school, a fact which was not made known to him at the time of registering his children.
Nwosu contended that to make matters worse, Mitzi has not said a word to us the parents or the victim of the attack and the savage teacher remains at post unperturbed.”
As a result, the lawyer stated that “as a deeply offended and traumatized parent, I dutifully petition your good offices to cause due investigations into and requisite sanctions for the radical and illegal regime being implemented by the school, the remote and immediate reasons for descending so mercilessly on the child (none of whose parents speaks Twi) and the remorseless posture of the teacher and the proprietor, both of whom alarmingly justify this brazen act of blatant barbarity.”
By Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson