How Command Secondary School ‘rejected’ 12-year-old student ‘over HIV status’

When 12-year-old Jude (not his real name) told his mother he wanted to become a naval officer, she knew she had to support his dreams as his only living parent. An option she would begin with was getting him into a Command Secondary School, a chain of schools run by the Nigerian army. But an “expulsion” from school over Jude’s positive HIV status would leave Agnes Okoro, his mother, frantic about how to pull her once bubbly son out of the hollow cave of suicidal thoughts he sank into. 

Jude, a JSS2 student born with HIV, once attended the Command Secondary School in Kaduna but the incessant attacks by terrorists in the state prompted a transfer to the school’s branch in Suleja, Niger state, closer to Abuja where he lives with his mother and sister.

On Monday, January 10, Okoro accompanied her son to complete his registration for the second term. Customary of school registrations, the new students were asked to present their medical reports and medications where necessary. This routine undertaking would turn out to be the beginning of the end of what the mother of the 12-year-old thought was a fresh start for her son.

“The Monday Jude resumed school in Suleja is a day I’ll never forget,” she told TheCable.

“They asked people with medical issues to step forward and I asked Jude to go. He got to the doctor and the next thing I heard was shouts and angry screams. I walked up to him and asked him what the problem was and he asked me what drugs those were. I told him they were anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs. He then asked me why I brought ‘this’ child to school and I said ‘I don’t understand, he came to study like every other child, as you can see he’s a student’.”

The school doctor, whom Okoro identified as Dr Asuzu, supported by the administrative officer (AO), revoked her son’s admission for fear of “mingling with other students and transferring the disease”.

“Jude had just been to the hospital the previous Wednesday and his test results showed he was doing very well. It was -20,” she said.

Jude’s viral load of -20 means that “he doesn’t have enough virus in the blood to transfer to another person since his viral load is less than 20000 copies,” according to Akhilele Obehi, a medical doctor who reviewed the result for TheCable. But that was not a risk the school was willing to take.

WE’RE PROTECTING HIM FROM BULLYING, SAYS COMMANDANT 

Sagir Isa, a lieutenant-colonel and the school’s commandant, however, said Jude was not dismissed over his HIV status but to protect him from bullying.

“[He] is a small boy in JSS2, if other students should find out what he has, they’re going to stigmatise him and he’ll not be happy,” he told TheCable over the telephone.

“So to avoid all these issues, we called her, refunded her admission fee, and added N20,000 for her to add to his medication fee so she can enrol him somewhere else. He would be better managed in a day school. You know how boarding activities get, he might even forget to take his drugs and who has time to go and look for him to remind him? There are over 1000 students here.”

Okoro also confirmed receipt of the additional N20,000 to TheCable.

According to Isa, the reason for the angry outbursts at the school was because Okoro provided a medical report that insinuated her son was “healthy” and did not present his ARVs as she claimed.

When asked why Jude was dismissed, despite his initial enrolment in the Kaduna arm of the school as an HIV-positive child, the commandant said he reached out to the institution’s other commandant and found out that “he was not aware of any situation like that”.

To resolve the matter, a meeting was set up by the National Agency for Control of Aids (NACA) and had in attendance the school and the Network of People Living with HIV and AIDS in Nigeria (NEPWHAN).

At the meeting, the school, on learning that the boy’s late father was a soldier, offered his mother a referral letter to transfer him to another Command Secondary School in Lafia.

Isa Takuma, chairman of People Living with HIV (PLWHIV), said he was approached to seek justice for Jude. He recalled Jude’s mother rejecting the referral letter offered by the school.

“As an association, we stand for our own, so we pleaded that the school takes the boy back but the commandant said the school would not take responsibility for the boy’s health since he’s still very young,” he told TheCable.

“So we advised that the mother take the referral offer letter for another school. But at this time the mother did not want a referral letter. She wanted compensation for the damage done to her son because according to her, her son had been traumatised since that incident.”

SEEKING JUSTICE 

Okoro has since contacted Lawyers Alert (LA), a non-profit advocating human rights, to pursue the matter in court. The reason, she said, was the inhumane treatment Jude received which caused him severe trauma.

“You needed to see the way they were treating this child. They held his mattress like it was filth, it was almost like he had leprosy. I went to pick him and I noticed he slept in the clinic instead of the hostel. Then they ordered a soldier to follow him to pack his things to make sure he does not ‘touch’ the wrong things,” she said.

“When this happened, Jude was crying and asking me why I allowed this to happen to him. He kept saying he was going to kill himself, I was so scared. Emotionally and mentally, he was damaged.”

According to Lawyers Alert, a lack of seriousness from the school prompted the litigation.

“After listening to her, we immediately arranged for psycho-social support for her son, we could see how traumatised he was from what had happened. We then arranged for an amicable settlement between the school and the family but after a series of meetings, we discovered there was no seriousness from the perpetrators. As we speak, the case has been filed at the federal court,” Bamidele Jacobs, the lead lawyer on the case, told TheCable.

“We’ve witnessed a lot of stigma at people living with HIV as a human rights organisation and we are determined to show that you cannot just kick out anybody on account of their status.”

The chairman of PLWHIV however said he believes that an interrupted education for Jude is more important than litigation.

But Okoro said she wants nothing to do with Command schools again, stressing that she is keen on receiving compensation for the trauma suffered by her boy.