“I Crawled on the Floor With an Open Wound” — Queen’s College Graduates Share Their Wildest Experiences 

A generational school, Queen’s College, leaves different kinds of memories for the women who passed through it. For some, they were able to make the kind of happy memories that stay with them even years later, but for some, these memories are not all rosy.

In this piece, former students of Queen’s College reflect on moments that stayed with them long after graduation.

There was a time when I was at the school’s pavilion with my friends, and seniors approached me to let me know I was seated with my legs spread for the public and asked, “Don’t you know how to sit?” At that time, I didn’t know how to sit properly, so I replied, “No, I don’t.” 

For some reason, they thought I was being rude, so one of them asked me to kneel, and then they slapped me back to back. One person would slap me, another would do the same, and they just kept taking turns. 

Later, before school was over, they called me into their class to continue my punishment. By the end of the day, my ears were ringing till I got home.

When I was in junior secondary school, I experienced what extortion looked like in the form of Queen’s College seniors. Every week, unfailingly, they would find an innocent junior to prey on, give her 5 naira, ask her to get them snacks worth 20 naira and bring back 40 naira. If she didn’t do it, she was at risk of getting punished. I also experienced this quite a lot. 

The first time it happened to me, when I asked how I would get snacks of 20 naira if I was only given 1 naira to work with, they ignored me. Thinking they were not serious, I didn’t go to the tuck shop like they expected me to. Later that day, they found me in my class, and I will never forget the beating I got that day. 

It didn’t stop there. They waited a few days for me to recover, then they dumped their dirty laundry on me to wash. My fingers’ skin peeled back from all the clothes I washed. The next time they sent me on that errand, I didn’t waste time before getting to it. My allowance suffered, but I preferred that to the beating. 

When it came to march past training, the seniors didn’t spare anyone. When I was in SS1, we were expected to march while the SS3 girls trained us, and honestly, it was not a good time because of how much violence they poured into it. The training was hell. The seniors were very fond of using mopsticks of different lengths to flog us, made us roll in the sand, and engaged in all sorts of things in the name of “training.” Sometimes, they would even make us train until midnight. 

I’ll never forget how one particular senior made my best friend lie down beside a wet gutter with spirogyra and flogged her on her butt with a mopstick, or how they would slap people so hard their ears would ring for days. It was terrible. Some of my classmates couldn’t sit down in class for days because of the bruises on their bodies. If you’re wondering why quitting was not an option, it was because they would, as we say, “enrush” us, which in simpler terms means gang-beating.

There was a rumour going around that a senior had lost her dad, and in a bid to bond with her, a dorm mate lied, saying I’d said the senior’s behaviour was bad because of her father’s death. That was how the gates of hell were opened.

The night I was called to her dorm, I was in my towel because I’d been washing. I noticed people were gathered watching me, but I didn’t pay it much attention until I was stripped naked and they proceeded to gang-beat me. Some used mopsticks and buckets while others used their hands, and the number of people hitting me kept increasing because this senior was quite popular, so friends from other dorms came to join in. I was dragged around like an animal, and even when my best friend tried to beg them to stop, they beat her, too. At some point, I became completely numb.

When my parents found out, they took it up to the authorities, but nothing was actually done to those involved. That was just how it was at QC. The wicked seniors barely had to account for their brutal actions.

I remember a time a senior took a particular interest in me. She would offer me food from the dining hall and call me over to stay in her room. At the time, I didn’t understand that she was expressing romantic interest, though honestly, I think I should have caught on.

It came crashing down the day she finally told me how she felt, and I rejected her. After that, her friends decided to take it personally. Some would call me over just to slap me for no reason. I remember one in particular: she was supervising the class beside mine and decided to punish me in the corridor for loitering. The slaps she gave me had my ear ringing all night. 

This went on for a long time, until the day I was summoned to apologise for hurting the senior’s feelings and made to fetch a stack of buckets as tall as me. I spent that night crying and carrying buckets of water, but after that, they left me alone.

This happened when I was in JSS2. It was the end of prep, and we were about to leave the class area when, for some reason I can’t quite remember, I shouted: “Morale high,” a phrase we used to say at the time. Immediately, I felt a slap on my back. A senior had hit me, and when I tried to explain myself, I got slapped again. She then dragged me all the way from the JSS2 block to the front of the seniors’ dorm, where she kept hitting me. When the beating was finally over, she made me fetch a bucket of water with a teaspoon and polish mouldy shoes for more than 40 people. All because I said “Morale high.”

In Queen’s College, there is this thing that happens when you enter SS2. You’re expected to join a cadet school band or be an official callisthenics dancer. A lot of us wanted to join the school band because it gave us the opportunity to leave school. The seniors knew how desperate we were for this, so they exploited it since they were technically in charge of the band. 

We had to do whatever they asked us, like fetching water, buying their food, and the like. They would beat us with anything they could get their hands on because they knew we were at their mercy. I don’t know when this started, but apparently, it’s a tradition that has spanned over the years. It’s silly that we were punished just for wanting to be part of something. 

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This happened during night prep in SS2, third term. The SS3 girls had already written WAEC, and most had moved out of the hostel, but a group of tomboys, athletes, and footballers we called “blokes” had stayed back and still came out for night prep.

That night, some of my classmates and I decided to “shop,” which meant going into SS3 classes to take books we might need since they were done with exams. While we were doing this, someone joked about the possibility of those blokes appearing, and it was like she manifested them: the next minute, they appeared, and we had to run the moment they saw us. It was a full race for survival, and in the chaos, I lost my slipper, and one asthmatic friend nearly had an attack from the stress.

When things seemed settled, I went back for my slippers, and it turned out to be a bad decision. The moment I got there, a bloke was waiting for me, and when I tried to escape, another was waiting by the exit. One of them grabbed my shirt and let me know that she had seen my face and my classmates’, and that we were to appear in their class the next morning.

The next morning, we went there like people with a death sentence. When we walked in, they didn’t waste time. They beat us, made us kneel on the ground for hours, and forced us to clean their dirty classroom. Anyone who showed even the slightest attitude suffered worse. I watched one senior girl break an entire umbrella on my friend’s body, all in the name of “anger issues.”

I had a habit of avoiding work and ‘stabbing’ classes, and there was a time I was caught by the head girl in this place called the obong corridor. She made me crawl on the untiled floor. I had an open wound at the time and pleaded with her about it, but she didn’t listen. I watched my skin peel off the floor with every movement as I made my way towards her on my knees. The wound remained sore and infected for 2 weeks and left a scar afterwards. 

I really obsessed over people’s opinions of me when I was young, and in Queen’s College, that was a weakness. The other girls didn’t really like the fact that I was one of the smartest in class, and they knew how much things got to me, so maybe out of jealousy or something else, they used that as a weapon. 

I was 12, going to 13, and that time of my life was really sensitive. Having other girls mock my face, hair and body was not something that I could easily let slide off my back. I was seriously affected by it because they did it continuously, and sometimes, they would even steal from me just to teach me a lesson. 

I couldn’t talk to anyone because at Queen’s College, no one ever really listens to you. They expect you to just figure it out. Throughout my junior school years, whenever I called home, I would cry and say I didn’t want to be in QC anymore. In my opinion, the school was designed to break you. No one I know ever has good things to say about QC, and we only ever bond over our shared trauma. I do not miss that school in any way. 

When I was at QC, there was a tradition:  seniors resumed on Saturday, and juniors resumed on Sunday. I was in SS2, so my friends and I resumed on Saturday. That night, we needed to take our baths, but there was no water, so we headed to an area called 48, which had many taps but was meant only for SS3 girls. It was an unspoken rule everyone knew about. We weren’t supposed to be there, but it was our only option.

Unfortunately, some SS3 girls caught us bathing there and decided to punish us badly for having the guts to use their space. They made us lie on the ground and roll on it while they had their baths, and afterwards took us to their room and told us to sleep naked as part of our punishment. They also threatened to take videos of us and send them to King’s College boys.

It was such a disgusting and humiliating experience. I can never forget the faces of those seniors.

When I was younger, I was quite naive, so I didn’t think too much of it when a senior approached me in junior secondary school and started acting like my school mother. I didn’t mind because everyone in my life spoke fondly of school mothers, so I turned a blind eye to all her actions. 

She grabbed my breast multiple times and told me that it was normal for girls who were friends to do it. I didn’t think much of it, even though I was quite uncomfortable. Sometimes, I would study with her because she always said it was important we did it together, and during those times, her fingers would stray from my breast to my vagina, and she would play with it. I don’t remember a lot because that was a long time ago, and I am still very ashamed, but I do remember I thought what was happening was wrong. 

I also wanted to tell someone about it, but I didn’t because it felt like I owed this senior my life. Because of her, I was safe from other seniors who were looking to bully me. There were many times when I ran out of provisions, and she would give me from her stash until I got new ones. She was kind to me, and maybe that’s why I didn’t really acknowledge that she was basically assaulting me. 

In my final days at Queens College, some girls in my dorm were secretly cooking in their rooms, even though it was clearly against school rules. I wasn’t involved at all. When they were caught, the girls who were responsible ran away, and the rest of us who were innocent were left behind to face the punishment.

We were flogged, then evacuated from the dorm and made to sleep at the school gate overnight. It was during Ramadan, and many of us were fasting. It was uncomfortable, humiliating, and exhausting. The next morning was even more embarrassing. We were still in our nightclothes and housewear while other students walked past in their uniforms. Our parents were also involved, which added even more pressure and shame.

Nobody said anything about the real culprits. As a teenager, especially in an all-girls school, being called a snitch felt worse than the pain itself. I had only just started boarding in SS2, so the whole experience was a terrible introduction to boarding life. What made it worse was seeing the actual culprits the next morning, dressed in their uniforms as if nothing had happened, with no real consequences for them.

Now, when I think back, I sometimes feel cowardly and like I betrayed myself by keeping quiet. But I also understand that at that age, in that environment, I was just trying to survive and avoid being targeted. It was a very painful experience, but it also taught me a lot about justice, courage, and how silence can hurt you.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

When I was in JSS3, I had a close friend whose older brother attended King’s College. Over the holiday, some seniors from our school went out with him and his friends, and at some point, he called one of them ugly. He probably didn’t think it was a big deal, but when we resumed, everything began to change for my friend.

Instead of going after the person who insulted them, they came after her, and it wasn’t something that could be overlooked. Every time she was in their vicinity, they would find the nearest item, usually a mopstick, and beat her with it. There was no safe place for her at school, and every other day she would have bruises on her body. She wasn’t the one who insulted them, and yet she had to face the consequences.

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