It starts on a very fine morning, as you walk out of your house (going in search of your daily bread), and behold, you sight this group of youths walking towards you, armed with metal tin cans, filled with coins which they shake as they approach you smiling and laughing.
Your first thoughts at that moment would be to run back into your room and shut the doors tight so you don’t get mobbed by these “mad” men. But just then, you realised that these are not madmen. They ain't crazy at all. These are students from the nearby tertiary institution(university, polytechnic or college of education); of course, it’s another Rag Day!
They are dressed in tattered clothes, and as you watch, you see them stop people going about their legitimate businesses and ask, beg or demand money. They enter homes, shops, stations and offices begging for money from people.
You see them on the street like a bunch of zombies who have taken over the town and are trying to infect everyone and you wonder what their driving force is.
Rag day is a day set aside in the Student Union week in higher institutions, when students dress in rags to raise donation for charity purpose.
When this exercise started, its aim is to provide for the needy. Every money accumulated through this process is usually given to the less privileged people or better still, taken to an orphanage home to support them.
As time goes by, the purpose of rag day has been forgotten by many students and replaced with self interest. "when the purpose of a thing is not known the abuse is inevitable", such is the case of Rag day. Students begin to extort the people without having the mind of charity and giving to the poor which is the initial purpose of setting up rag day. This became so rampant till it fills the atmosphere.
In today's world, students rag for themselves so as to get some stipends for themselves. Some even go as far as collecting foodstuffs from market women, clothes, household utensils and so on. It has became a time to enrich their pocket and eat good foods which deviate from the initial plan of setting up rag day in institutions.
It would be good if all tertiary institution students can retrace their steps and do the necessary restitution.
All pictures snapped with my phone. None is copied or gotten online.
