Once again, Chrisland school is on the news, and for all the wrong reasons.
Last year if you recall, a video of a female student involved in immorality with her schoolmates in a hotel room in Dubai circulated on the internet.
This time, the death of Whitney Adeniran a 12-year-old female student of Chrisland school has sparked outrage amongst the public.
Blessing Adeniran the mother of the 12-year-old student of Chrisland International School, Opebi branch, who died during the school’s inter-house sports activities at Agege Stadium, took to her Instagram page on Sunday to narrate how she found out her daughter, Whitney Adeniran, had died.
In the video, the bereaved mother said that she got worried when she didn’t see her daughter among the houses that participated in the matching parade. She (the mother) went looking for her daughter and was told by another student that Whitney had slumped and had been taken to the hospital.
Blessing said she immediately left for the hospital but had a hard time finding it because she was given the wrong address.
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 (Desola) 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.”
Continuing, she said, “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.”
The father of the deceased Whitney, Mr. Michael Adeniran also said his daughter had no health condition or sickness as of when the school bus picked her up for the event.
In his post on Facebook, he had this to say: “I gave Chrisland school a healthy vibrant young girl what Chrisland returned to me is a dead child. My entire family is in deep sorrow but the school authority claimed they know nothing about my daughter’s death and all they know is that my daughter slumped and died.”
“Since we started asking this question. The school has been asking us to back down from the autopsy and I know they know their way into the system. I am calling on the pathology department of @lasuth to please be honest with their result. Lagos State government, Nigerian Government, please intervene.”
Reacting to the call for justice by the family of the deceased and sympathetic members of the public, the management of Chrisland International school had this to say in a press release on Sunday.
“The management and staff of Chrisland International School, with a deep sense of loss, announces the death of our precious student, Whitney Adeniran; whose painful exit occurred on Thursday, February 9th, 2023.
We are heartbroken and distressed. 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 of.”
“However, on discretion, we respected her decision to err on the side of caution, because on the January 20, 2023, it is in our records that she had complained about a not-too-buoyant health and we immediately contacted her parents.”
“Her father, Mr. Michael Adeniran, came to the school to take her home. We emphasised to her parents to take a critical look at her.”
The school said “the deceased slumped in public view and not under any hidden circumstances,” adding that she was rushed to the nearest medical facility for first aid.”
“Our immediate response was to take advantage of proximity to first-aid, by identifying the nearest medical facility to take her to, where the doctor on duty, administered oxygen and every aid possible on her,” the statement said.”
“We immediately notified regulatory stakeholders and agencies to allow for a comprehensive evaluation and assessment of the developments.
In spite of the compelling imperatives to fill any information gaps in public space, we stopped short of making any media sensation out of this, because the deceased in question, was a minor and is deserving of our unqualified respect.”
“We also prioritised according respect to the privacy of the family and were with them consistently, to mourn together. This is a painful loss for all of us,” it added.
“As we await the outcome of an independent post-mortem process, we remain unwaveringly committed to supporting the family at this critical moment and pray fervently for the fortitude to bear her painful loss,” they added in their statement.
The case has been reported to the Lagos State Police Command and further investigation is ongoing. Also, the state government has ordered for a temporal shutdown of the school.
However on Arise TV this morning, the mother’s sister was at the school and she said despite the fact that investigations were ongoing, the school did not shut down and that classes were on and the windows are open.
