There are some things that should never be swept under the carpet. One of them is the death of 12-year-old Sylvester Oromoni Jnr. The other is the circumstances surrounding his unfortunate demise. The news of the boy’s death and the manner in which he died caused national and international outrage which attracted a presidential statement.
But, contrary to all the allegations peddled at the time, it appears there is more to the death of the 12-year-old boy than was presented to the public by Sylvester Oromoni Snr and his family.
Unfortunately, it appears all that was a show put up to divert attention from the main culprit(s). Sylvester’s family through their words, deeds, misdeeds and inaction within the period leading to the boy’s death surely have questions to answer.
Having alleged that their son was apparently murdered after he refused to join a phantom cult, the older Oromoni clan made startling allegations after they oversaw their own poor management of the boy’s ill health and his death in their presence.
The first allegation made in public was through a person identified as a cousin to Sylvester. This person accused Dowen College of negligence leading up to the young boy’s death. She alleged that the school lied when it said the boy had an injury while playing football. According to this cousin, the injury story by the school was to divert attention from the main issue which she claimed had to do with bullying at the dormitory.
As if that was not enough, Sylvester’s father later joined the fray. With the aid of video clips and several interviews, he led the narrative that Sylvester was murdered. He conjured all manner tales to justify the allegations.
He alleged, without evidence, that on his death bed, Sylvester listed five names of senior students who wanted to enlist him in a cult. Although he did not name the cult.
He went further to say that for refusing to join the secret society, his son was subjected to serial and sustained beating by the five boys. Not satisfied, he added that his son told him that these boys forced him to ingest a liquid substance which he suspected to be poison. This was at a time that blisters occurred on his lips and mouth.
As a result of this “confession”, Mr Oromoni engineered a blistering negative campaign against the school. But more importantly, he supervised a damaging and scandalous criminal defamation against not just the families of the five accused students but the underaged students themsleves.
This led to the shut down of Dowen College by the authorities, protests by the public and the arrest and detention of the accused underaged boys by the police. Because they went public with these false allegations, they have damaged the social capital of all those they accused. The families and the students are now viewed as murderers and bullies.
This is why the announcement by Lagos state government recently that every accused person has been exonerated has met with public hostility. Recall that the Lagos state police command had released the detained boys and staff of Dowen who were arrested in connection with the death.The police said they didn’t have any material evidence to keep holding them after the court had granted them bail.
Later, a more scientific basis for dismissing the allegations was made public. The result of the autopsy carried out on Sylvester has revealed in detail why people should not rush into judgement when allegations are made. The two autopsies which were held in the presence of all affected stakeholders proved that indeed what the Oromoni family had saturated the public with was false.
The autopsy showed that Sylvester was not beaten, did not ingest any poisonous chemical, and did not die through such cruel activities. Instead, the poor boy died of acute pneumonia and related diseases. He also had an injury on his leg which appeared to tally with the football story earlier told by the school and confirmed by other students.
To buttress the point about the result of the autopsy, the outcome of the post-mortem which had Pathologists from the family and government plus law enforcement agents showed the boy was not poisoned.
Details of the autopsy are already in the public space and are detailed enough. It completely exonerated all the accused – showing that Sylvester, unfortunately, had other viral diseases that had worsened since he was not given any proper medical assistance. This is apart from the injury he suffered while playing football.
Nothing from the post mortem showed he was beaten or that he ingested poison.
This is why the question must be asked, what then happens? Why will the boy’s family cook up the story of poison, cult and beating when medical examination and police investigation have shown otherwise?
From my observation, and taking into account all the issues raised and answered through autopsy, police investigation and the Director of Public Prosecution’s advice, it is clear that the Oromoni family were negligent and indeed actively participated in seeing to the death of the young boy.
I have gathered from sources within the family that the the Oromonis have a religious belief that disallows them from medical assistance. Looking through all their efforts to help their dying son, there was no serious attempt to offer medical assistance at any point.
After they took him from the school, the boy was taken to a lab for x-ray in Lagos before he was taken to Warri. No record of him being admitted to hospital for proper medical treatment. They only ran more tests, apart from allegedly taking him to a temple for prayers.
Having accused others of killing their son, the Oromoni clan had to hatch a plan to sustain the initial lie when they blamed the school. They resorted to manufacturing names to cover their negligence. The DPP rightly dismissed the allegation of the name listing. Even though Oromoni Snr had said this son told him about the names, but during police investigation, he changed the story to say that the boy told an unnamed “family friend”.
It will be fair for the police to call in the Oromonis. This matter cannot be swept under the carpet. Evidence shows that the public has been deceived and a lot of people and businesses have been tarred.
Oromoni Snr has to explain how he came about the names he alleged killed his son. He has to be investigated to uncover what exactly the family did or didn’t do which led to the boy’s death. The public needs to be told the sequence of activities from when the boy was released to the family and his eventual death. Why was Sylvester not taken to a hospital? If he was, where are his medical records? Why did they hastily misinform the public about an autopsy result contrary to what the specialist hired by the family found as shown in the toxicology result?
Thus, with the scientifically proven evidence and facts, it is my opinion that Mr. Oromoni who misled the Delta State Government, Nigerians and the whole world with his concocted stories is not a fit and proper person to hold public office. He can’t continue to use government paraphernalia to intimidate innocent children and their families. To this end, the Delta State Government should either call him to order or disengage him since he is becoming an embarrassment to them. DEL
Kingsley, a public affairs analyst, writes from Lagos.
