The Lagos State Ministry of Education has ordered the temporary closure of Chrisland School, Opebi-Ikeja, following the reported death of a student of the School, Whytney Adeyemi, who died on Thursday February 9th, 2023, at the Agege Stadium, during the school’s inter-house sports.
In a statement signed by the State Commissioner for Education, Mrs. Folasade Adefisayo, the closure was ordered pending the outcome of a full investigation into the unfortunate incident.
The commissioner, on behalf of the State Ministry of Education, commiserated with Mr. and Mrs. Adeyemi, parents of the deceased, Whytney, and prayed for the repose of her soul, she also said;
“We also note the impact of this unfortunate event on family, friends and acquaintance of Whytney and call for calm as we assure that no effort will be spared in investigating the incident”.
Meanwhile, the mother of the deceased student, took to social media on Sunday, 12th February, 2023, to accuse the school of negligence leading to the death of their daughter, who allegedly slumped and died during the school’s inter-house sports activities held last week.
The mother of the deceased, said her daughter was already dead when she caught up with the team that rushed her to the health centre.
She raised the alarm that the school had no provision for emergency response, hence didn’t administer first aid.
“No ambulance, doctors, or medical personnel in a place where you have about 500 students and over 100 parents. I rushed in to meet Whitney’s corpse on her deathbed. This happened in less than 10 minutes”.
“I saw the staffer who went with her. I asked the doctor what happened and she said it looks like a cardiac arrest. How does a 12-year-old have a cardiac arrest without any pre-existing medical condition”?
Reacting to the parent’s accusation through a statement yesterday, Chrisland School said Whitney was ill 20 days before the inter-house sports event.
Chrisland said Whitney had reported “not-too-buoyant” health on January 20. Based on proximity considerations, the school said it opted to take Whitney to a health centre, not a hospital.
“Whitney was one of our day students who opted not to participate in the inter-house sports match-past for reasons we were not very sure about.
“However, on discretion, we respected her decision to err on the side of caution because, on January 20th, it is in our records that she complained about not-too-buoyant health and we immediately contacted her parents”.
Chrisland dismissed allegations of any foul play in the student’s death while citing that she slumped in public.
“Even as her family made funeral plans, we differed politely and reiterated the need to establish a scientific verification of the underlying cause of death as mandatorily required in circumstances like this,” it added.
This is not the first time Chrisland School Lagos would be at the centre of a crisis involving one of its students.
In mid-2022, four teachers were arraigned after a sex tape by Chrisland pupils surfaced online during an outing.
Story: Christy Dung