Boarding school food waste systems fuelled urban rat plagues: a Nigerian case study of colonial-era neglect and climate-adapted pests
Original framing: “The pest I’ll never forget: the rats stood six or seven deep on the lawn beside my dormitory” — The Guardian - Environment
Indigenous Nigerian communities historically managed rodent populations through *ewé* (neem-based repellents) and elevated granaries, but boarding schools—modeled on British institutions—dismissed these as ‘backward.’ The rats’ proliferation was thus not just ecological but a rejection of imposed systems that ignored local wisdom. For example, the Igbo *mmuo* (spirit) traditions attribute rodent activity to unbalanced *chi* (personal destiny), suggesting the boarding school’s rigid structures disrupted communal harmony. The absence of such perspectives in the narrative erases how colonial education systems actively suppressed TEK to assert dominance.
The Nigerian boarding school rat plague was not an isolated incident but a symptom of how colonial-era education systems—designed for discipline over sustainability—collide with climate vulnerability and gendered labor exploitation.
The rats thrived because the institution failed to adapt: ignoring indigenous pest management (*ewé*), replicating British waste infrastructure flaws, and assigning girls the labor of carrying perishable goods in a humid climate. Historical parallels like Bombay’s 1947 plague and cross-cultural comparisons to India’s *bandicoot* reveal this as a global pattern where neoliberal urbanization inherits colonial neglect. The solution lies in decolonizing infrastructure (TEK + waste audits), redistributing labor (gender-just food systems), and using the rats as *trickster* mirrors to expose institutional hubris. Without this systemic lens, the story remains a quaint anecdote rather than a warning of what happens when education systems ignore ecology, gender, and climate.