The last may not have been heard about the controversy surrounding the death of a 12-year-old student of Lekki-based Dowen College, Sylvester Oromoni Jnr, who was allegedly bullied and beaten up by suspected ‘cult members’ in the school.
This is just as the school management released an statement dismissing the report of ‘cults and confraternities’, adding that the deceased sustained injuries while playing football with schoolmates.
Five senior students, three of whose names appeared online, were indicted in the rumoured assault.
Recounting the encounter and the events surrounding his last moment, his father, Sylvester Oromoni announced that the boy passed away nursing multiple internal injuries and swollen stomach.
He subsequently released a hospital footage that showed an unclad Sylvester Oromoni Junior was seen writhing in pain. The boy’s teeth were stained dark red with blood and his legs and stomach appeared bloated.
The man said: “My son suffered. His birthday is next tomorrow (Dec 4). I’ll celebrate it. I’ll have a cake baked. I’ll cut it on his behalf. The boys they mentioned were also reported to the school last term when they bullied Junior and collected all his foodstuffs; clothes. I have two daughters, one of whom earlier graduated. I had to remove the second after this incident. They asked this boy to describe the sister’s privates and this got to us.”
The man accused Dowen College of temporarily suspending the boys involved after pressure from the family’s eldest son who took up the case.
“They put fear in him so much so that, when you ask him, he might keep to himself and say, ‘they will kill me’. This way, we didn’t know what to do. I considered removing him reconsidered since his sisters were still in the school. The new incident came to my knowledge on November 21st after the school called my wife to notify us that our son was in the school clinic, injured. My senior son, who was to make a London trip, came to see us in Warri.
“The next day, we sent a family friend to help pick up our son since he was the only person in Lagos and take him to the hospital. When he got there, he panicked, pointing out that he doubts it’s a football injury as the school claimed. He said the boy couldn’t stand because his waist was bent and swollen along with one side of his belly. His mouth was black. I asked, ‘is this really a football injury?’ He was taken to my house in Lagos but couldn’t sleep at night.
“I asked my eldest to fly to Lagos on November 24 while I took a trip to Asaba, from where I’d also make for Lagos. On getting there, he screamed. ‘This is beyond football injury. Come to Lagos now,’ he told me over the phone.”
Sylvester’s father disclosed that the family flew the deceased to Warri where blood tests and an x-ray were conducted.
According to him, Junior also underwent typhoid/malaria treatments but his mouth started peeling in excess of malaria drug side effects. The bereaved said the deceased only managed to sleep one hour when sedated and would wake up screaming in pain until he opened up on November 29.
He claimed that his son, before his death, revealed that he neither played ball nor tripped as claimed.
The dying student disclosed that five boys had barged into his room, put off the lights, and beat him up in the presence of other students.
“Junior said, ‘mummy, I didn’t play ball; I didn’t fall.’ He jumped off his hostel bed. They kicked him, matched his waist. Other students ran off. They threatened to kill them all if they spoke a word to the school staff. They warned Junior to say he sustained injuries while playing ball. They threatened him. If you ask the roommate, they’d all lie. They matched his ribs and waist. All that pain for a 12-year-old,” he said.
The father said Junior suffered liver enlargement due to congealed blood before he drew what became his last breath.
According to him, Junior was fed a liquid substance described as “a chemical” for refusing to join the ‘cult.’
An aggrieved Oromoni said, “They (Dowen College) even released a press statement. Was the principal there when the boy played the said football game? Can they identify who he played with? Where was the housemaster when he was playing it? The woman too is confused. Clearly, she’s trying to protect the school’s image. But a mother of children wants to hide the truth?”
Reacting to his allegation, Dowen College debunked the claims, saying one of the school’s hostel officials had informed the management on November 21 that Junior was injured while playing football with his colleagues.
The school also disclosed that he was given first aid by a resident nurse and returned to his hostel after he expressed relief. It said Junior started complaining of pain in his hip the next day.
The management swore that the student was attended to, a second time, by a doctor at the school’s sickbay. It added that the doctor later called Junior’s mother to inform her of the situation and thereafter recommended that he be picked up.
Dowen College claimed in the statement that, after an initial delay, the student’s mother sent a guardian who took him for an x-ray. It denied that the boy was beaten and debunked the allegation that there existed a clandestine group priding themselves as a cult.
“Preliminary investigation showed that there was no fighting, bullying, or any form of attack on the boy. He made no such reports, neither to his sister who is also a student, nor any other students, prefects, house parents, medical staff, or any of the management staff. The school has 2 regular nurses and a qualified medical doctor that promptly attends to students. [We] will not tolerate any acts of cultism which is why there is nothing like that,” the school had said.
The family had petitioned Hakeem Odumosu, the Lagos commissioner of police, on December 2 and stated that it intends to address another petition to the inspector-general of police on December 6 for a full-scale probe.
“I won’t reveal the steps we’ve taken to seek justice. The parents of the boys are wealthy. They withdrew them. The school called the parents to pick their wards; interviewed them. Some of the parents are planning to fly the children out of the country. How can Dowen allow those boys to leave the school without informing the police? The boys are five in number: four are in SS2 while one is in SS1. When the result comes, Nigerians will know the truth,” the father said.
