A four year Old pupil, Miguel Ovoke was said to have died during the feeding hours of his school, BrickHall Schools located in the Cadastral Zone B11, Kaura in Abuja.
According to the death certificate dated April 24, 2024, issued by a Specialist Hospital, Abuja, and sighted by newsmen, Ovoke was brought to the hospital by his teachers around 11 am in an unconscious state.
The medical report, signed by Dr. Akinwande Ajayi, on behalf of the medical director, indicated that he was brought in, “on account of aspiration on meat while feeding at school.”
The hospital said upon examination, the medical team found that the boy’s pupils were fixed and dilated, with a nomreactive response to light.
His peripheral pulses were said to be “impalpable, blood pressure was unrecordable, and there was no cardiopulmonary activity or respiratory excursions,” the report indicated, noting that all the efforts of the medical team to resuscitate the boy failed while, the report concluded that he was “Brought in Dead.”
The parents of the deceased, suspecting foul play, contacted a lawyer, Deji Adeyanju, to handle the case on their behalf.
Miguel Ovoke was said to have been dropped off at school in the morning, only for his mother to receive a call from her husband, said to be currently in Aba for a business transaction, informing her that Miguel’s school had called him to come, according to Adeyanju.
“So the wife quickly rushed to the school, only to find out that Miguel was dead. The school claimed that he had experienced a seizure and died, but she was told by other pupils who saw him dead in the toilet that they had informed the teachers he was having a seizure. However, the teachers told the four-year-old boy to go and ‘sneeze it out’ in the toilet, where he died.
Adeyanju said, “When the mother requested the CCTV footage, they refused to provide it. However, with the intervention of the Garki DPO, they claimed the CCTV footage had crashed. Only today’s footage crashed, while other CCTVs were working. The footage to show what happened to Miguel is not there, which clearly implies they have wiped it. They even blamed the mother for reporting to the police. As of now, they have failed to report the matter to the police”.
Attempts to get the reaction of the school authorities have been abortive.
However, The FCT Public Relations Officer, Josephine Adeh, said the police had begun an investigation into the matter.