A woman in Rivers State, Jennifer Atuegbu, has sparked widespread reactions on social media after accusing her two-year-old son’s school of shaving part of his hair without her consent.
She said the school authorities have failed to explain how the incident occurred.
She did not provide the name of the school.
Ms Atuegbu, who first raised the alarm in a video on Facebook on Wednesday, said she discovered the unusual haircut when she arrived to pick up her son from school.
She did not, however, disclose the name of the school.
Although she later deleted the initial video, she replaced it with a written post and subsequently released a lengthy video narrating the events that led to the controversy.
“Nigerians please come to my aid,” she wrote.
“I went to pick my son from school and discovered that his hair was shaved and it gave him a little wound. My Son is two years old and can’t express himself properly.
“The school is trying to sweep this away. They are not taking the situation seriously. They are not taking responsibility.
“They are protecting the teacher and minder. Where is my son’s hair? Who did this to my son?”
The post was accompanied by a photograph showing a portion of the back of the child’s head that appeared shaved.
How she discovered it
In a video posted on Friday, Ms Atuegbu said the incident occurred on Wednesday when she arrived at the school around 3 p.m. to pick up her son.
“My name is Jennifer. I am the mother of a two-year-old whose hair was shaved in school,” she said.
“Everything happened on Wednesday. I went to pick my son up on a regular day around 3 p.m. When I arrived the teacher brought him out for me. He immediately ran and hugged me and I noticed a shave at the back of his head.”
According to her, when she questioned the child’s teacher, the teacher appeared surprised and denied knowing anything about the partial haircut.
“The teacher was acting surprised, telling me she doesn’t know. Someone that is supposed to take care of my son,” she said.
She added that the teacher subsequently questioned the child’s minder, who also denied knowledge of the incident.
“I went to the administrator, and reported. She was so surprised and speechless. She called the minder and the teacher, asking what happened but both said nothing.”
Additional concerns
Beyond the missing hair, Ms Atuegbu alleged that she noticed an injury on one of the child’s fingers.
“Besides the hair, I noticed they cut his left fingers. I asked the teacher but she said she’s not aware that they don’t cut nails in school.”
She said she repeatedly sought explanations from the school management but received none.
“I was dumbfounded, looking at people that were supposed to explain to me. I was asking, who took my son’s hair and what are they using it for,” she said.
The mother said she initially refrained from involving law enforcement officials because of her existing relationship with the school.
“I didn’t want to fly to the police station because these are the people I’ve been dealing with,” she explained.
Meeting with school
Ms Atuegbu said she returned to the school on Thursday with a relative to demand answers.
According to her, the administrator promised to investigate the matter but did not immediately provide an explanation.
“You people are not being accountable. Who took my son’s hair?” she recalled asking the administrator.
“She was beating around the bush, saying ‘this is absurd.’”
The administrator eventually told her: “Ma’am you have to go, we’ll investigate the matter and get back at you.”
Frustrated by the response, Ms Atuegbu said she made another video outside the school premises.
“That was why I ran outside and made that video and as soon as I made that video everybody came out,” she said.
Calls for investigation
The mother insisted that the haircut could not have occurred at home.
“My child is my only child. I live alone and I don’t have any help. There’s no shaving stick in my house. There’s no razor blade. That thing was done in the school,” she said.
She also said efforts to obtain information from her son had been unsuccessful because of his age.
“I’ve tried asking my son but he’s two years old and cannot express himself that much. Even when they took him to the classroom to point out who did it to him he couldn’t express himself.”
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Describing the incident as an assault on her child, she expressed concern about both the physical injury and the circumstances surrounding it.
“I can’t sleep well because in as much as this is an assault on my child. Because a weapon was used on him and he bled.
“Apart from being checked at the spiritual level. This is an assault on my son.”
The video has since gone viral on Facebook, drawing widespread reactions and calls for a thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding the incident.
The police spokesperson in Rivers State, Agape Kaborlo, did not respond to calls and a text message seeking her comments.
