As they filed out of the examination halls, final year students of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK), Awka, were ambushed by their junior colleagues for the rite of ‘baptism’, which involves the splashing of water to celebrate their graduation. UCHE ANICHEBE (500-Level Law) reports.
Nobody knew how it started or from where it originated. Groups of students came out from nowhere, with buckets filled with water; they ambushed their senior colleagues as they came out of the examination halls. Gently, they asked their ‘victims’ to squat as they surrounded them to perform the ‘baptism’.
It is ritual usually performed on final year students to bid them farewell.
Baptising graduating students with all sorts of liquid is a common practice in many higher institutions. It is a tradition that is observed at the end of the session when students in the final lap of their academic journey graduate.
Commonly referred to as “graduation baptism” or “washing”, it involves either ambushing outgoing students with buckets of water or inviting them into circles of students to ‘honourably’ receive the splashes of water from junior colleagues. After the ‘baptism’, the graduates entertain the ‘assailants’ with drinks to celebrate the forthcoming convocation.
Sometimes, the excited students, most of who are freshers and second-year students, go to the extent of pelting their ‘victims’ with eggs and tomatoes. At other times, students in a particular Hall of Residence may agree to wash their clothes or plates and splash the water on their ‘victims’. In extreme cases, the performers of ‘baptism’ collect water from sewage to splash on the graduates.
All these were carried out by Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK) students, who joined their graduating colleagues to celebrate the conclusion of the their final degree examination. CAMPUSLIFE witnessed the ‘baptism’ of graduates from various departments.
With the university not joining the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), students were in school to write second semester examination.
The baptism was performed in various departments at the permanent and temporary sites of the institution daily. Despite the epileptic power supply and shortage of water on campus, students somehow got many buckets of water for the exercise.
At the temporary site, which is close to the UNIZIK junction, the water ritual was observed differently. The graduates were made to sit on a stool, while their colleagues from their hostels and nearby halls pelted them with sachets water, eggs, tomatoes, stew and all sorts of liquids.
It did not matter whether the baptisers knew the ‘victims’, all that mattered was to identify any graduating student; the mob would immediately swing into action. After the baptism, some of the outgoing students threw parties where the mob was entertained.
Ozuo Isidore, a graduating student from the Faculty of Law, noted: “It was as if all my hostel mates knew I was graduating on that day; they all waited for me. I had already been splashed in the school but immediately I stepped into the hostel, they started to pour all kinds of water on me. At that point, another graduating member of the hall returned, and they asked us to play a football match against each other, threatening us with the dirty liquids. The loser was drenched with a good amount of sewage water.”
A graduating student identified as Gold, who was visibly angry with his colleagues’ treatment, protested, complaining he did not like the “water affair”.
“This is becoming wicked. I never sprayed drainage water on my seniors when they graduated last year. After I wrote my final paper, people, most of who I could not recognise, ambushed me and sprayed water from the drainage on me. My plea not to do so fell on deaf ear. I got irritated, and when I got home to have my bath, I saw some larvae on my underwear. I felt disgusted.”
One of the baptisers, Uche Orji, a 400-Level Engineering student, told CAMPUSLIFE: “I always look forward to catch the excitement. The kind of water and duration of the baptism depend on the popularity of the graduating student in question and his academic record. Bookworms and first class graduates always receive severe treatment. Students that used dirty water on their senior colleagues will definitely have the same treatment when their turn comes.
“It is all fun. Most of the time, people do it in good faith. In my hostel right now, people are storing used laundry water to spray the hall chairman, who will graduate in two days. Then we cap it with party.”
On other campuses, the ritual is the same. Gerald Nwokocha, a graduate of Information and Telecommunication Technology from the Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO), relived his experience.
“It is a yearly activity in my school. When I wrote my final paper, my junior colleagues waited for me at my hostel, spraying me with all sorts of water. They were not satisfied; they pushed me into mud water just to celebrate my graduation from the university. That is what makes graduation memorable and no one is a graduate unless he is baptised.”
