Students to get counselling after classmate's deportation
Students are to receive trauma counselling after the deportation of their classmate from a Co Monaghan school, it emerged today.
Ike Okolie, 15, was sent back to Nigeria last week with his mother, younger brother and younger sister.
He had been a transition year student at Castleblaney Community College and had achieved several higher level As in the Junior Certificate.
Principal Gerry Hand said the teenager’s classmates were very upset by the sudden deportation.
“There’s certainly a number of them who still haven’t come to terms with this so we have a trauma counsellor coming in tomorrow to talk to the group that are most affected,” he said.
Mr Okolie had attended school last Monday morning as normal but when he went home, he was detained with his family in a garda station.
“Essentially Ike left here at lunchtime and was deported back to Nigeria in his school uniform without any of his personal belongings,” said Mr Hand.
The school left an empty spot on the stage later that week during its production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves to mark the absence of cast member Mr Okolie.
Mr Hand described Mr Okolie as an "absolute model student" and added that his mother, Nkechie, was very involved in local voluntary groups and charities.
“An absolutely fantastic woman, not someone who just came and used the system,” he said.
Mr Hand said the deportation was difficult for staff and the school’s 325 pupils to deal with.
“We’ve had a number of students that would have died in car accidents but we always came to terms with it because there was a coffin and there was a service and there was closure. This is a funny experience because there’s no closure.”
He added: “We know he’s alive and somewhere in Nigeria but that’s it – he just disappeared in the thin of night.”
The school is organising a meeting on Thursday to discuss setting up a campaign for the return of Mr Okolie. The meeting will also hear proposals from students to set up a scholarship fund so that the teenager and his siblings can continue their education in Nigeria.
Meanwhile, supporters of Olunkunle Eluhanla (19), a Leaving Cert student who was deported last week, are to protest outside Tourism Ireland’s offices in Amsterdam and Glasgow this week.
A Tourism Ireland spokesman said she would not comment because the protests were not directed against tourism policy.
