Nigerians on Twitter are demanding answers following the death of one Emmanuel Ojo, a JSS 3 student of Christ Apostolic Church Grammar School, Akure Ondo State.
Emmanuel, 16, reportedly fell and hit his head on a concrete floor while playing on the school premises on January 11.
This was a few days after school resumption.
Emmanuel was said to have been rushed by the management of the school to the University of Medical Science Teaching Hospital, Akure, but was pronounced dead on arrival.
Following Emmanuel’s death, the Information Officer of the Ondo State Ministry of Education Science and Technology, Olaoluwa Meshack, issued a statement, revealing that the Ondo State Commissioner for Education, Olufemi Agagu, and some other government officials paid a condolence visit to the school and the family of the deceased.
According to the statement, Agagu urged the family to take solace in God, believing that He alone knows the appointed time for every being on earth.
During the Ondo State Commissioner for Education’s visit to the school, the Principal of CAC Grammar School, Oluwapelumi Adetimehin, narrated what transpired before the sad occurrence.
She said the deceased, aged 16, was hale, hearty and bubbling with life when he resumed at school on Tuesday, but began to complain of a headache shortly after the Principal’s test.
Adetimehin said accounts by eyewitnesses indicated that the deceased initially sat quietly among his classmates for a while until they began to play around.
The Principal said that he later attempted to jump through the window, but hit his head against the post and collapsed, hitting his head on the concrete floor.
According to Adetimehin, the colleagues of the deceased raised the alarm that attracted school staff and she immediately rushed him to the school’s clinic, but was advised to take him to the teaching hospital in Akure, where he was pronounced dead.
The father of the deceased, a shepherd at CAC, Oke-Iyanu, High School area in Akure, Pastor Joshua Ojo, described the incident as a cruel blow of fate on the family, but said he could not query God why he allowed it to happen to him.
Despite the statement from the Ondo State Government and from the school’s Principal, Nigerians are demanding more explanations, with some calling his death fishy.
Oluyemi Fasipe, an Ondo State Youth Representative and Youth Advocate, took to Twitter to demand answers.
Fasipe asked what happened when the boy was taken to the school’s clinic before he was then rushed to the University of Medical Science Teaching Hospital in Akure, where he was pronounced dead.
Fasipe, who is the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to Hon. Tajudeen Adefisoye, popularly known as Small Alhaji, tweeted: “Who is the nurse that injected Emmanuel Ojo, the 16-year-old student of CAC grammar school in Akure who was reported dead In the school last week?
“Why did she give the boy a hydrocortisone injection?
“Why is the school not telling us in details.”
@amazingope wrote: “I watched the video showing the parents and family doctor a few days ago, the story sounds fishy.
“How will a child be rushed to the hospital around 9am and the parents won’t be informed until when it was almost 2pm.
“Let’s say they were in a rush to go to the hospital and probably forgot to call the parents but this shouldn’t take more than an hour.
“And it isn’t that they have just few teachers in the school, who could have done it.
“I said to myself, people are complaining then about boarding school issues, the boy involved was actually a day student.”
iamolaoluwasogo: “ODSGov, and the entire management team of the school should be sued.
“There is more to the death of this boy, meanwhile autopsy needs to be carried out on his corpse to ascertain the actual cause of death.”
@Arakunrin of Nigeria: “Why did CAC Grammar School, Akure offer Ojo Emmanuel some amount of money few days after the death of Emmanuel?
“Something is fishy.
“#justice4Emmanuel.”