After weeks of suspension, some schoolgirls discovered smoking shisha in Abeokuta, the capital of Ogun State, have been allowed to return to class.
The girls, all students of Abeokuta Girls’ Grammar School in Onikolobo, Ogun State, were discovered smoking shisha while recording themselves at one of their classmate’s residence.
After the video went viral, the school’s administration was alleged to have suspended the kids indefinitely.
The issue was taken up by the Ogun Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology, and steps were made to rehabilitate the schoolgirls.
As of Tuesday, the teenagers were said to have undergone a series of counselling before they were returned to class.
The Commissioner for Education, Prof. Abayomi Arigbagbu, during a visit to the school, said the students would be put under manual labour as a form of punishment in the school to serve as a deterrent to others.
In her words, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Mrs Abosede Ogunleye, charged students in the state to shun acts that would jeopardise their future.
Ogunleye pleaded that the reinstated students should not be stigmatised, saying, “The learners have been counselled and made to undergo some punishment and I want to believe they have changed for the better. So, I want to encourage you not to abuse, stigmatize or call them names, instead advise them and be their friends.”