When
both Mr. Anthony and Dr. Jennifer Abuneme gave birth to their first
child on Feb. 11, 2012, their joy knew no bounds. In their excitement,
the couple decided to christen the new born baby, Osezua Emmanuel.
Among the Ishan of Edo State, the name Osezua means ‘good things come
from God’. It was understandable. The Abunemes got married on May 14,
2011 and the same month, the wife got pregnant and later gave birth to a
bouncing baby boy.
To the admiration of his parents, Osezua grew up very fast and was
soon known as a vivacious boy. By September, he was registered at the
crèche section of the Masters Ville Children School, Ajao Estate. He was
doing well until tragedy struck two months later.
On Nov. 12, Osezua’s parents dropped him off at school at about 7 am
and went to their different places of work. Unfortunately, it was the
last time they would see him alive.
About three hours after the Abunemes had left, they were informed
that their son, whom they had left in the care of a nanny, had been
rushed to the Faith City Hospital, breathless.
In disbelief, the couple rushed to the hospital only to be shown the
lifeless body of their son at the emergency ward, which is situated
opposite the school.
Whatever transpired behind the walls of Osezua’s school within the
three-hour interval between the period he took ill and arrived at the
hospital dead, in spite of its proximity to the school, is shrouded in
mystery.
Abuneme told a source that when he arrived at the hospital, he
instinctively took the lifeless body of his son and tried to give him
mouth-to-mouth resuscitation but it was in vain.
Although they are grieved at losing their first and only child, who
was hale and hearty a few hours after they dropped him at school,
Osezua’s parents appear to have accepted their fate with stoic calmness.
As soon as it occurred to him that his son was dead, Mr. Abuneme
contacted a church priest who came to bless the corpse and prepared it
for immediate burial.
He said he had to bury the child and go back home to grieve, knowing
that there was no point dissipating energy on legal action of any kind.
He said, “I requested an explanation of what really happened. What they
told me was that my son choked when they were feeding him. We handed him
over to one of the nannies, one Ijere at about 7 am on that day and
drove off to work.
“But I learnt that when the other nanny, Mrs. Dauda came, she asked
Ijere why she had Osezua strapped on her back. The other woman said she
had to carry him on her back because nobody was around when we brought
him to the school and she wanted to do something.
“Dauda said she took my boy from her colleague and in her words, both
she and Osezua slept off. When they woke up, Osezua started crying and
she wanted to give him food. That morning, my wife had prepared a meal
of beans and put it in his pack. The nanny said she fed him about four
spoons of the meal and she was about to give him the fifth, when the boy
choked. Then she raised the alarm.
“I was told that Mrs. Ijere (who was actually an auxiliary nurse)
said she held the boy upside down in an attempt to resuscitate him,
albeit in a crude way, instead of dashing across the road to the
hospital, which was just within easy reach.”
Masters Ville Children School is very close to Faith City Hospital.
Both institutions are numbered 11 and 16, respectively, on Asa-Afariogun
Street in upscale Ajao Estate, in the Okota area of Lagos.
But on the second day, the boy’s mother discovered blood stains on
his dress. The clothe had smelt of mentholatum ointment when it was
returned.
The discovery had ticked off an alarm and the Abunemes decided to
unravel the mysterious circumstances surrounding their son’s sudden
death.
“I made up my mind to get to the root of what happened to my boy. It
was not that it would bring him back to life because I knew that he was
gone forever. But I was worried about other children. The incident
happened on Monday and I contacted the police on Friday. This tells you
that my mission is to sensitise other parents and warn them about what
may happen to their children at any time,” he said.
Abuneme complained that the attitude of the authorities of the
Masters Ville School toward the tragic incident did not help matters. He
said there was no representation from the school after he buried his
child.
He said, “In fact, when people started coming to commiserate with us at
home, some of my friends and family became curious when they did not see
anybody from the school. Some of them even threatened to storm the
school and create a scene, but I pleaded with them not to do that.
“They insisted on going there, at least to let the school authorities
realise that even if it was a chicken that died in their poultry, there
should be a measure of compassion, let alone a child. They went and
when they came back, they told me that the school management said they
would have come, but they feared that they might be lynched.
“It was after this that representation from the school came. When I
reported the case at the police station in the estate, it took the
school some time before they could produce the pair of Ijere and Dauda
who repeated the same story that I just narrated to you.
“I believe the school is hiding something from us. For instance, the
bottled water in my son’s pack was still intact. Yet, he was fed. How
can somebody feed a boy of nine months without giving him water to
drink? Curiously, the hot water, which my wife put in his flask, was
half-full when the pack was brought home.
“What did they do with the hot water? We fed the boy with cereal
before taking him to school that morning? Nobody told us anything about
blood, so how come there were blood stains on his dress? What about the
mentholatum?
“When I asked why they didn’t take him to the hospital opposite the
school almost immediately, I was told that they were trying to put him
in a bus and were trying to open the gate. Someone could have held him
and dashed across the road to the hospital in less than one minute.
“When I went back to the hospital, the doctor told me that he did not
have any chance to help the boy because he was brought in dead. It was
the same doctor that took his delivery. So he is more or less like a
member of our family. I can imagine how he felt about the situation.”
The death certificate issued to Osezua’s parents, which was made
available to our correspondent, showed that the boy was dead on arrival
in the hospital. The document was signed by one Dr. Okpaleke Kingsley of
Faith City Hospital.
The family wrote a petition to the Commissioner of Police in Lagos
State through the Ajao Police Station, urging the law enforcement agency
to find out why their son was left to die instead of being rushed to
the nearby hospital. A few arrests were made, but the school authorities
have been making different representations to plead with the Abunemes.
When the source visited the Master Ville Children School on Tuesday
to find out what happened, the receptionist, who turned hostile as soon
as she learnt of the mission of our correspondent, blocked all attempts
to speak with the head teacher. She claimed that no incident occurred in
the school on Nov. 12.
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