Government shuts down Chrisland school again after pupil’s death

Following the passing of Whitney Adeyemi, a pupil at Chrisland School in Opebi-Ikeja, the Lagos State Government yesterday ordered the school’s temporary closure. The order was announced Monday by Mrs. Folasade Adefisayo, the state commissioner for education.

According to Adefisayo, the closure was mandated pending the findings of a thorough inquiry into the regrettable incident.

According to her, “On behalf of the state Ministry of Education, we commiserate with Mr. and Mrs. Adeyemi, parents of Whitney, over the death of their daughter.

“We also note the impact of this unfortunate event on family, friends and acquaintances of Whitney and call for calm as we assure that no effort will be spared in investigating the incident. We, pray for the repose of her soul.”

The circumstances surrounding Whitney’s death, which occurred last Thursday during the school’s athletic tournament, are currently the subject of discussion.

This came about as a result of allegations made by several of the pupils that Whitney, a 12-year-old, had been electrocuted, in contrast to denials made by Chrisland International High School administration, who claimed that Whitney fell in plain view of the other kids and not in any mysterious circumstances.

Dr. Michael Adeniran, the heartbroken father, however, declared that the battle lines had been drawn and that the school will be sued for making the remark that his late daughter was ill.

Some of late Whitney’s schoolmates, who claimed to have witnessed the incident that led to her demise, said she “was electrocuted by a naked wire from a cotton candy machine.”

One of them, in an audio recording on a school group chat, said Whitney and her friend had gone to buy candy at a cotton candy stand that fateful day when tragedy struck.

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According to the student, “I don’t know what happened when they got to the stand, whether she placed her hand or leg on something. But, we noticed all of a sudden that a strong force pulled Whitney up and threw her on the ground. That was when people started pouring water on her. Immediately, the owner of the candy stand switched off the machine and ran away through the fence.

“There were no medical personnel to attend to Whitney or administer first aid on her before taking her to the hospital. It was fellow students that were pouring water on her, until the school nurse arrived. The nurse couldn’t do much, so they had to convey her in the school bus since there was no ambulance at the venue.”

But the school exonerated itself from culpability, explaining that its immediate response was to identify the nearest medical facility, where the on-call doctor supplied oxygen and every help he or she could muster on the student.

The school in a statement by its management said: “The management and staff of Chrisland Schools Limited are heartbroken and distressed over the death of our precious student, Whitney Adeniran, whose painful exit occurred on February 9, 2023.

“Whitney was one of our Day students, who opted not to participate in the Inter-House Sports march-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 20, 2023, it is in our records that she complained about not too buoyant health and we immediately contacted her parents. Her father, Mr. Michael Adeniran, came to the school to take her home. We emphasized to her parents to take a critical look at her.

“It is instructive to state that Whitney slumped in public view and not under any hidden circumstances whatsoever.”

Whitney’s mother, Mrs. Blessing Adeniran, has written a post on social media detailing how she learned of her daughter’s passing.

The sad mother said she was informed that her daughter had slumped and had been taken to the hospital in the video posted to her Instagram page yesterday.

Blessing claimed that she hurried to the hospital right away but struggled to locate it because she had been given the wrong location. But when she did find Whitney, she claimed that Whitney was already dead and had black lips and tongue.

Narrating her ordeal, she said: “We drove out of the stadium to the gate, we asked the gatemen (for the hospital), they didn’t know. As we were driving around, we were asking people where we can find Central Hospital but they all said they only knew Agege General Hospital. When we couldn’t locate the place, we decided to go to Agege Central Mosque and on our way to the mosque, we saw the school bus packed, so, we knew we were at the place.

“I jumped down from the car when we saw the school bus and rushed in. I saw the staff that went with her (Whitney) and I asked her ‘Madam, where is my child, what happened, why did she faint,’ she (the staff) said ‘I don’t know, she’s in there’. I went in there and I saw my daughter’s corpse, Desola didn’t say anything to me. I went in there and I met my daughter on her deathbed, she was already dead.

“She was drenched, soaked to the skin, water was dripping. I knelt down, I called on God, I shouted, I screamed. I felt her pulse, there was no pulse. My daughter was silent. I asked the doctor what happened to my daughter and he said from the look of things she suffered from cardiac arrest.

“How does a 12-year-old have a cardiac arrest? No pre-existing heart condition, no pre-existing medical condition. She was hale and hearty, she was not sick in any form. Even if she will die from cardiac arrest, why should one arrest kill a healthy teenager? Let me state this, that by the time I got there, my daughter’s lips and tongue had already turned black.”

Blessing added that her daughter as not taken to a hospital but an immunisation centre, adding that there was no proper first aid management.

She said: “My child was not taken to a hospital, she was taken to an immunisation centre but that is not even my pain. My pain is there was no proper first aid management, there was nothing that was done for her, she was brought to the hospital dead.”

It would be recalled that Michael Adeniran, Whitney’s father had taken to social media on Saturday night to demand a probe into the death of his daughter, calling on the Lagos State government and the police to intervene in the matter, also demanding for Chrisland to explain what actually happened to his daughter.

However, the deceased’s father, Dr. Adeniran, who spoke to reporters at his Ikeja home, denied the school’s assertions that his daughter was ill. As a way of unraveling the exact cause of his daughter’s death, he disclosed that he had begun a legal process to ensure justice was served on the matter.

The Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, who confirmed the incident yesterday, said the matter was reported to the police immediately after the incident occurred.

He said: “Yes, the case has been reported to the police. It was reported immediately the incident happened on Thursday.

“The case is currently at the State Criminal Investigation Department and an autopsy is going to be carried out to know the circumstances that led to her death. That’s all the update I have for now.”