Man was just punishing his boy; then social media blew everything out of proportion

On Tuesday, a video went viral on social media, showing a man later to be identified as Daniel Kibuye swinging stick towards a toddler in the presence of its age mates, basing on the sound from the toddler, no doubt, the stick was reaching his body.

According to social media forensic evidence, Kibuye was indeed battering this little boy, reason- He had lost his way to school.

Kibuye was later identified as the father of the toddler and with more pressure from self proclaimed social media influencers, he was summoned to police and also caned with charges of child abuse.

Kibuye would later be seen on TV flooding with tears, saying he does not know what had possessed him to smear the toddler’s body with well raised canes. He then asked for forgiveness from everyone he could remember and said he should not be looked at as a batterer. “I cannot reverse it, I do not know what I was doing, but I did it, I ask for forgiveness……”Kibuye said in the short clip.

The man cut a dispirited figure, with an option-less and yet shocked mood, he had gone into this caning mission just like any parent, but social media returned him wounded. He thought he was making a point to his little boy, calling upon him to man up, but social media signed his charge sheet.

Kibuye is a child of the generation that grew up hearing; “The ears of an African child are on the buttocks.” When the children were too slow to grasp that proverb, they threw another on the blackboard; “Spare the rod and …..( and the children would simultaneously answer)…spoil the child.” ..still when it was too hard to get, a very mean faced teacher would stand front of class, point into the direction of the most mischievous child and say: “You must bend the tree when it is still young, when you bend an old one, it will break…” by the time these words would be done, you would have received a poke, a slap and your ears pinched like you said something bad about the age limit of teachers.

The situation was not any better whether home or at school, young or old, parents and teachers always signed agreements in our absence, to BEAT the hell out of any child who failed to a follow a certain constitution they only knew, I think this is why they developed the PTA (Parents Teachers Association).

I will go back to the video of Kibuye allegedly battering his son, well I have watched it multiple times and the father is lashing his son on the legs and few on sticks on its head, and fellow pupils are there watching, not shocked!! Why? It is routine, some of them could have just received their dose a few minutes before Kibuye prescribed for his son.

The pupils watching know that Kibuye’s discipline is as original as the coat of arms, no one has ever brought a petition to amend it.

Kibuye just like the rest of us out here know what caning is, oh my God we were caned. Losing your way to school even on the first day would attract you a beating (yet no one ever showed you where the school is), at least Kibuye’s son was taken to school for sometime by his elder brother. The parents of our days would walk you out of the house, stand on the veranda and say: “Do you see where those children in black and white are going? Go there.” And let news reach them that you lost your way! You would first be caned home, then taken to school and caned, then brought back home and the ceremony completed in front of neighbors, peers, and passers by, then the day visitors come you will be beaten again.

I think this is the reason why most of us today would rather not ask for direction or use google maps, but try as much to locate a place or sit on a boda and say gwe genda (You go) then the boda guy would also just go and after riding for hours will start asking his fellow boda guys; "City oyilo eliwa?". We have been groomed meeehn.

There are those who have already expressed on social media that throughout the 13- 16 years of school, 18 years were for being lashed. One gentleman from a school along Entebbe road said one day a mathematics teacher came to class and the best student had posted 50%, then he decided to cane everybody the same number of canes as the difference between their marks and the 100 percent.

“He caned us, that his hand got bruised and stored the canes to the next day and the next day until we were all done and out,” he said.

"He caned everywhere, it was up to you to make sure the canes landed on the buttocks, but he did not care, legs, nose, mouth, thighs, bums, back, fingers, tongue....everywhere," he added.

I would like to tell the social media lovers out there that people have been caned and they are still, cut Kibuye some slack, he simply raised a few sticks to discipline his son, and besides, children of today really need some sticks, they do not listen, they do not follow instructions and ..(this is personal)..they only like chips and ice cream.

Some of you were beaten to the extent that you contemplated doing DNA tests to be sure those were your real parents, some of you even ran away from school and home and have never gone back because of canes, Of course some of you became very serious people because you were indeed disciplined and we have heard those stories, some of you were my classmates at university because your teachers did the “needful”.

By the way, the interesting thing is…some of you were caned just because you had not committed crime..someone would just come and say: “Where were you when your brother was committing this crime?”pwaaaaaaa….canes until the stick breaks.

 

So Cut Kibuye some slack!

 

These are strictly the views of the writer and not any way associated with Nile Post or NEXT MEDIA SERVICES.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Article 106 (a) of Children Act, as amended in 2016, prohibits corporal punishment in schools