By Adedayo Emmanuel
Rauf Aregbesola Primary School is perhaps the biggest public school in Shasha-Akowonjo, a community in Alimosho Local Government Area of Lagos State.
However for several months, the frontage of this school has become a refuse dumpsite without the local authorities doing anything to change the abnormality.
The school is a facility to groom the future leaders, but when these supposed leaders of tomorrow are fed with unpleasant sights on a daily basis, with time, they would in their subconscious agree that is how things should be. This of course would kill their sense of order and esthetics.
When Newdawn approached some parents taking their wards into the large premises about the refuse, some of them said it is a government facility and there is nothing they could do about it as same government should know better.
“If it was a private school, you know it can not become a refuse site. Teachers would not want parents to withdraw their pupils and they would stop people from dumping refuse there but you know this is a government facility, you know how things are in Nigeria,” a guardian who simply identified himself as Okanlawon said.
Another parent, Alhaja Sherifat Abolore Aminu said she has called some of the teachers and they are yet to wade into the matter. “We have told some of the teachers, I think they are afraid, only protecting their jobs, so they feel they are helpless. When these children start to contract diseases that is when they will see it is an emergency,” she said.
Of course children’s immunity is not as strong as the adults’ and some of these children can easily contract diseases as houseflies from the refuse can easily perch on their food during break.
Much more than the possibility of contracting diseases from the refuse and decomposing materials, another disorder the pupils may encounter is a possible distortion in their psychic.
According to a residence of the community who preferred to be anonymous, what the children see daily goes into their psychic.
“These children seeing this terrible sight on a daily basis since last year may lose their sense of tidiness. They may lose their sense of orderliness, this is a permanent disease that may go a long time to heal,” he explained.
Explaining further, he said, “When they contract diseases like typhoid or cholera from the refuse dump, they may be out of school during the treatment and may drop in their academic performance. However, they can easily gain what they lost with time but they may have a permanent mindset of disorderliness with the rubbish they see daily which goes into their subconscious and may stay with them for life,” he explained.
The Local Government authorities, the school’s authority as well as the host community are hereby enjoined to clear the refuse which poses a danger to the pupils and the community as a whole.
