The death of a nine-month-old boy pits the
parents against the management of a crèche in Lagos, writes ADEOLA
BALOGUN
When both Mr. Anthony and Dr. Jennifer Abuneme
gave birth to their first child on Feb. 11, 2012, their joy knew no bounds. In
their excitement, the couple decided to christen the new born baby, Osezua
Emmanuel.
Among the Ishan of Edo State, the name Osezua
means ‘good things come from God’. It was understandable. The Abunemes got
married on May 14, 2011 and the same month, the wife got pregnant and later
gave birth to a bouncing baby boy.
To the admiration of his parents, Osezua grew up
very fast and was soon known as a vivacious boy. By September, he was
registered at the crèche section of the Masters Ville Children School, Ajao
Estate. He was doing well until tragedy struck two months later.
On Nov. 12, Osezua’s parents dropped him off at
school at about 7 am and went to their different places of work. Unfortunately,
it was the last time they would see him alive.
About three hours after the Abunemes had left,
they were informed that their son, whom they had left in the care of a nanny,
had been rushed to the Faith City Hospital, breathless.
In disbelief, the couple rushed to the hospital
only to be shown the lifeless body of their son at the emergency ward, which is
situated opposite the school.
Whatever transpired behind the walls of Osezua’s
school within the three-hour interval between the period he took ill and
arrived at the hospital dead, in spite of its proximity to the school, is
shrouded in mystery.
Abuneme told Saturday PUNCH that when he
arrived at the hospital, he instinctively took the lifeless body of his son and
tried to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation but it was in vain.
Although they are grieved at losing their first
and only child, who was hale and hearty a few hours after they dropped him at
school, Osezua’s parents appear to have accepted their fate with stoic
calmness.
As soon as it occurred to him that his son was
dead, Mr. Abuneme contacted a church priest who came to bless the corpse and
prepared it for immediate burial.
He said he had to bury the child and go back home
to grieve, knowing that there was no point dissipating energy on legal action
of any kind.
He said, “I requested an explanation of what
really happened. What they told me was that my son choked when they were
feeding him. We handed him over to one of the nannies, one Ijere at about 7 am
on that day and drove off to work.
“But I learnt that when the other nanny, Mrs.
Dauda came, she asked Ijere why she had Osezua strapped on her back. The other
woman said she had to carry him on her back because nobody was around when we
brought him to the school and she wanted to do something.
“Dauda said she took my boy from her colleague
and in her words, both she and Osezua slept off. When they woke up, Osezua
started crying and she wanted to give him food. That morning, my wife had
prepared a meal of beans and put it in his pack. The nanny said she fed him
about four spoons of the meal and she was about to give him the fifth, when the
boy choked. Then she raised the alarm.
“I was told that Mrs. Ijere (who was actually an
auxiliary nurse) said she held the boy upside down in an attempt to resuscitate
him, albeit in a crude way, instead of dashing across the road to the hospital,
which was just within easy reach.”
Masters Ville Children School is very close to
Faith City Hospital. Both institutions are numbered 11 and 16, respectively, on
Asa-Afariogun Street in upscale Ajao Estate, in the Okota area of Lagos.
But on the second day, the boy’s mother
discovered blood stains on his dress. The clothe had smelt of mentholatum
ointment when it was returned.
The discovery had ticked off an alarm and the
Abunemes decided to unravel the mysterious circumstances surrounding their
son’s sudden death.
“I made up my mind to get to the root of what
happened to my boy. It was not that it would bring him back to life because I
knew that he was gone forever. But I was worried about other children. The
incident happened on Monday and I contacted the police on Friday. This tells
you that my mission is to sensitise other parents and warn them about what may
happen to their children at any time,” he said.
Abuneme complained that the attitude of the
authorities of the Masters Ville School toward the tragic incident did not help
matters. He said there was no representation from the school after he buried
his child.
He said, “In fact, when people started coming to
commiserate with us at home, some of my friends and family became curious when
they did not see anybody from the school. Some of them even threatened to storm
the school and create a scene, but I pleaded with them not to do that.
“They insisted on going there, at least to let
the school authorities realise that even if it was a chicken that died in their
poultry, there should be a measure of compassion, let alone a child. They went
and when they came back, they told me that the school management said they
would have come, but they feared that they might be lynched.
“It was after this that representation from the
school came. When I reported the case at the police station in the estate, it
took the school some time before they could produce the pair of Ijere and Dauda
who repeated the same story that I just narrated to you.
“I believe the school is hiding something from
us. For instance, the bottled water in my son’s pack was still intact. Yet, he
was fed. How can somebody feed a boy of nine months without giving him
water to drink? Curiously, the hot water, which my wife put in his flask, was
half-full when the pack was brought home.
“What did they do with the hot water? We fed the
boy with cereal before taking him to school that morning? Nobody told us
anything about blood, so how come there were blood stains on his dress? What
about the mentholatum?
“When I asked why they didn’t take him to the
hospital opposite the school almost immediately, I was told that they were
trying to put him in a bus and were trying to open the gate. Someone could have
held him and dashed across the road to the hospital in less than one minute.
“When I went back to the hospital, the doctor
told me that he did not have any chance to help the boy because he was brought
in dead. It was the same doctor that took his delivery. So he is more or less
like a member of our family. I can imagine how he felt about the situation.”
The death certificate issued to Osezua’s parents,
which was made available to our correspondent, showed that the boy was dead on
arrival in the hospital. The document was signed by one Dr. Okpaleke Kingsley
of Faith City Hospital.
The family wrote a petition to the Commissioner
of Police in Lagos State through the Ajao Police Station, urging the law
enforcement agency to find out why their son was left to die instead of being
rushed to the nearby hospital. A few arrests were made, but the school
authorities have been making different representations to plead with the
Abunemes.
When Saturday PUNCH visited the Master
Ville Children School on Tuesday to find out what happened, the receptionist,
who turned hostile as soon as she learnt of the mission of our
correspondent, blocked all attempts to speak with the head teacher. She
claimed that no incident occurred in the school on Nov. 12.
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