On Friday, the coroner’s inquest into the death of Sylvester Oromoni, a 12-year-old pupil of Dowen College in Lekki, resumed in the Magistrate Court in Epe, Lagos State.
According to reports, the court was encircled by cops in response to concerns that some militants from Delta State planned to invade the venue of the inquest.
The assertion, however, could not be substantiated, and no one was ready to speak on the record about it.
Inside the courtroom, counsel to the Oromoni family and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Femi Falana, again asked the coroner to order the Commissioner of Police to release the certified true copies of the statements made by the suspected students and staff of Dowen College in the wake of the police investigation, as well as other relevant documents.
He was worried that despite the initial order by the coroner at the last sitting, the police had refused to comply.
Falana also informed the coroner, Magistrate Mikhail Kadiri, that he intended to call about seven witnesses to prove his case.
The first witness called to the box was late Sylvester’s guardian, Clifford Tejere, who gave his testimony about the painful circumstances in which he picked the boy from the school’s sickbay.
“On Tuesday, November 23 (2021), I was sent the phone number of the housemaster, Mr Ahmed,” he told the court. “When I got to the school, I was taken to the sickbay where Sylvester Oromoni was.”
Tejere said he was surprised to find the boy under the care of only one nurse and asked why he was not taken to the school hospital, but the nurse could not provide an answer.
“When I asked him (late Sylvester) what was wrong with him, he said that he played football and sustained injuries. I then asked him to try to stand up.
“As he attempted to stand up, he showed signs of serious pains. I had to carry Sylvester to the car with the help of a staff member because he could not walk.”
The witness testified that he called Sylvester’s father, after which he took the boy to a laboratory for an X-ray examination which showed no sign of fracture.
He added that Sylvester’s condition did not improve when he took him to the Oromoni family house in Abiola Court 5, Chevron, Lagos.
“After the x-ray, we went to the house after I bought hot balm and Panadol for him. I bathed him, applied the hot balm on his feet, gave him noodles, and tried to get him to sleep, but he was going through serious pain,” Tejere lamented.
He described how he had to make a video conversation with the boy’s father to explain the gravity of the situation the deceased was in.
Sylvester’s father arrived on November 25th, according to the witness, and they agreed to transport the boy to Warri, Delta State.
He added that the youngster was in excruciating pain on the journey to Warri, and that soon before his death on November 30, he admitted to his father that he had been beaten by several of the school’s lads.
Following his testimony, the coroner postponed the case’s next hearing until Thursday and Friday next week.
Ojelabi, the publisher of Freelanews, is an award winning and professionally trained mass communicator and a recipient of the D9112 Superstar Icon Award, who writes ruthlessly about pop culture, religion, politics and entertainment.
