Silent Struggles and Reconfigurations

When I tell people that I attended a military secondary school, they usually just look at me head-to-toe in disbelief. For whatever reason, most people think that I should be buff, big, and mighty as a person who went through such a school. I don't blame them, simply because I am just a normal guy with more brain power than physical—for now.

Anyway, I did attend a military school, and I hated most of the days I was in that environment. I looked forward to the day I would march for the last time in that compound, out the gate, and then back again, commemorating my passing out parade for my graduation.

I spent three years rather than six, and so I was thrust into a group of students that had already gotten the hang of things in the years they had been there prior. I, on the other hand, was one of the "transfer mumus" of the set. Mumu—a Nigerian slang meaning perplexed or ignorant person. And so SSS1 was a crazy rollercoaster, as well as the remaining years.

If I think of the unfair moments I experienced in that environment, inspired by the community's prompt, I would just have an endless list on a very long scroll, like the ones they used in the medieval times. But let me focus on the senior-junior relationships I had during that time.

Bullying is never acceptable in most places. And usually, there would be existing systems or rules against bullying. At the Navy secondary school I attended, however, it's a bit more complicated than it should be.

When you are bullied by a senior, reporting that senior isn't usually the smoothest of rides. There is the possibility of being reprimanded for reporting a senior, and there is the possibility of suffering unpleasant aftereffects of reporting if you successfully make the report and "get what you want." Thankfully, because things had gotten much easier during my time, the former was less likely.

I didn't realise that when you're treated unfairly by a senior, you were to just go through it like a Navy Boy and maybe circumvent your way around it somehow. Reporting usually doesn't turn out well. But I did on one of the days I had newly joined the school, and it had to be a class prefect. Damn.

I was beating unfairly early in the morning of the weekdays. If I remember well, it surely wasn't a cane but something worse. It was probably the heavy wood of one of those big hoes or something just as dense. And then I reported that event to a class teacher.

The class teacher summoned the senior, who happened to be the captain of the hostel I sleep in, and openly chastised him for what he had done to me. Unknown to me at the time, what had happened was really a normal thing in that school. Nothing much happened to the senior, but a lot happened to me instead.

The next thing I knew, the hostel roster for clean-up duties was refreshed, and I appeared more times than before, like I had a medal in cleaning up and was most qualified. Even when I would finish with my chores, I would often be asked by this same senior, being the house captain, to push out the water in the gutter with a broom.

For the same reason that I reported a senior, the colleagues of that senior also put their spotlights on me. I couldn't live in peace. Some of them may not need water at the time they spot me coming into the hostel after school hours, but I will mount up their buckets for me to fill for them. I couldn't really say no to that, as that would defy the school's existing system for respect, sort of. And I could get punished or beaten for declining.

It continued that way for weeks, and then I slowly realised that reporting a senior wasn't exactly a great choice to make if you don't have solid backing, like being the son of a renowned military officer, having a fearsome guardian for an officer in the school, or reputable school father(s) that could mediate for you.

So imagine the many unfair treatments we had to go through in silence because of how things worked then. But this was just one of the "good days" back then. Imagine being treated badly by an officer instead. Or worse, going through unpleasant times with the commandant himself. There were worse days. Worse days. And I hated everyone of them.

There were good times, too, and they were usually with my colleagues, going through the times together. And the day I graduated was the happiest of those times. Would I choose to go through such an experience if I could go back in time, though? Absolutely! Simply because I think I am a much better person now because of all my experiences then, good and bad.

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