Recall Sylvester Oromoni, the student who died in November 2021. Upon his death, there were stories surrounding the cause of his death. The blame was on the school where he was flogged and allegedly poisoned, which led to his eventual death. This further led to the closure of Dowen College since then.
Contrary to the public accusation, according to the Coroner Inquest sitting in Ogba Magistrate Court examining the death of a 12-year-old student of Dowen College, Lekki, Sylvester Junior Oromoni, has attributed his death to his parents’ and doctor’s negligence. He went further to establish that the boy had an underlying liver disease.
A thorough inquiry into the occurrence was ordered by the Lagos State Commissioner of Police in the meantime. The Lagos State Government cleared five Dowen College personnel and students who were charged with Sylvester Oromoni’s death on January 5, 2022, in Lekki, Lagos. Oromoni was buried two years later at the family’s Ogbe-Ijoh compound in the Warri South-West Local Government Area of Delta.
According to Mikhail Kadiri, the Coroner Magistrate, “Based on the foregoing, it is clear that the deceased’s health deteriorated in (the doctor’s) care. PW 3 did not take proper care of the deceased; PW 3 completely abandoned the deceased for a period of more than 32 hours. The deceased’s death was an avoidable one, but for the negligence of the parents and PW 3, they didn’t take him to the hospital until the day he died on November 30, 2021. The deceased went through an avoidable and excruciating pain and was made to suffer needlessly.”
In other words, Sylvester’s death was a result of his neglected underlying health issues as opposed to the alleged bullying and intake of poisonous substance.
By Chidimma NWAFOR
