The viral video of students in Mushin, Lagos, brandishing axes, cutlasses, and other hazardous weapons is not simply disturbing– it is a damning indictment of a system that is gradually losing its grip on discipline, morality, and responsibility.
In the video, these trainees– supposedly marking completion of their secondary school journey– honestly displayed signs and behaviour synonymous with cultism. What should have been an event of scholastic transition instead descended into a brazen exhibition of violence and ethical bankruptcy.
Let us be clear: this is not youthful enthusiasm. It is an unsafe normalization of criminal culture.
This shocking screen exposes the worrying depth of ethical decay amongst trainees. If teens at the secondary school level can so with confidence show off weapons and cultist affiliations within school premises, then something is fundamentally broken. Schools are no longer acting as centres of character development; in many cases, they are quick ending up being breeding premises for deviance.
And Mushin is not a separated case.
Throughout several public schools in Lagos, especially in densely populated neighborhoods, indiscipline has actually taken root with careless abandon. Trainees misbehave without fear, without restraint, and– most troublingly– without consequences.
So, where were the school authorities? Where were the instructors? Where was security?
The large audacity on display because video indicate more than negligence– it recommends a collapse of oversight. One can not neglect the unpleasant possibility that some within the system might be complicit, either through silence, indifference, or outright support.
Are these the leaders we are preparing for tomorrow?
At a time when Nigeria is currently fighting a debilitating wave of insecurity, allowing this culture to fester within our schools is nothing except reckless. These are not just misguided youth; they are possible recruits for criminal networks if urgent action is not taken.
Enough of the lip service.
The government, education authorities and school administrators should move beyond rhetoric and take definitive, noticeable action. Schools must be protected– not symbolically, however successfully. Competent and trained security workers need to be released with a clear required to keep an eye on, prevent, and report any kind of deviant behaviour.
More significantly, the ethical vacuum in public schools should be attended to right away. Counselling and mentorship programmes, which are basic in many independent schools, are essentially non-existent in government institutions. This is undesirable. Routine, structured sensitization programs should be made obligatory to challenge cultism, violence and other vices head-on.
There need to also be repercussions.
The trainees caught in the viral video must be identified and decisively disciplined. Anything less will send out a harmful message– that such behaviour can be displayed without effects.
This is not almost Mushin. This is about the future of our society.
If we fail to act now, we are not simply tolerating indiscipline– we are nurturing the next generation of criminals.