There was panic in Kubwa, a suburb town in the Federal Capital Territory, on Wednesday, following the death of four pupils of Local Education Authority II primary school.
They were said to have fallen ill and died after allegedly eating biscuits.
The biscuit was allegedly shared to the victims by an unidentifiable classmate on Tuesday.
Two of the deceased who were said to be from the same family were said to have been buried on Wednesday afternoon in Kubwa.
The late students identified as Na’imat Yahaya 14, of primary 4, and Yahaya Garba also 14 of primary four and Moses Sunday of primary one.
Unconfirmed reports said the children who died in the school premises were bleeding from the mouth and ears, before they gave up the ghost.
The incident spread panic in the community as parents and guardians rushed to the school and forcibly took away their children.
Our correspondent who visited the school saw the teachers discussing the incident while the headmaster was giving an account of the tragedy to officials of the FCT Education Secretariat, Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), who were at the school on a fact-finding mission.
Journalists were barred from the briefing and the headmaster whose name could not be immediately ascertained declined to comment on the incident.
Giving her own side of the story, a teacher in the school who didn’t want her name in print said: “When we came this morning, a child from primary four was sick. The HOD noticed it and asked him to go home. The other child in primary five who happen to be from the same parent was sick also and on reaching home, early hours of today, they died.
“Immediately we got the news, our headmaster called us and asked us if there was any celebration in any arm of the school and we said nothing like that happened.
“A while after our headmaster briefed us, another news came that a child in primary one died. This one fought yesterday after closing and on reaching home, he was taken to the hospital and he died there.
“After our headmaster addressed us, we went into our classes and before we knew it, Gbagi and Hausa people came into the school premises with stick, stones and bottle to come and attack teachers.
“God helped us because the Area Council chairman came into the premises after hearing about it. He called the police and then, the situation was arrested. They later said we should allow the children to go home but we suggested that those whose parents might still be at their work place should be allowed to stay but that generated another crisis.
“Some of the pupils ran to meet their elder ones in the secondary arm of the school while some ran out using the windows.”
On whether biscuit was shared or not, the teacher said the school had barred pupils from bringing edible things to school during any celebration.
A primary three pupil, Hasia Haruna, who allegedly partook of the biscuits was on admission at the emergency ward of the Kubwa General Hospital.
Looking pale in her yellow and white checkered school uniform, she was lying in her side with her mother closely watching over her.
The mother who looked troubled said she rushed Hasia, 13, to the Kubwa General Hospital, when she learnt that she partook of the biscuits at school.
She explained that her daughter, a primary three pupil of LEA primary school, informed her that she was given the biscuit by “a Muslim sister.”
The mother who spoke in Hausa, said, “There was a party in the school on Wednesday where my daughter ate biscuit with other pupils. We discovered that some pupils died at night.
“So I asked her if she ate the biscuit and who gave her; She said it was shared to them by a Muslim sister and so I was satisfied with her explanation, but the Bwari Area Council chairman, Musa Dikko informed us that we should take her to the hospital because some pupils died, so I decided to bring her here (Kubwa General Hospital).”
She said she gave Hasia some herbal concoction at home when she complained of stomach pains, adding that she was scared when she heard that Nahimah, a relation and a pupil of LEA primary school, had died.
“When I heard that Naimat had died, I quickly brought my daughter to the hospital, but since we got here, nobody has attended to us,” she complained.
But the Chief Medical Doctor of the Hospital, Dr. Lasisi Akinola, said the hospital had admitted some sick pupils which he described as nothing unusual.
“We receive sick pupils and people all the time, so there is nothing unusual about that. I know we have the corpse of a pupil who died after a fight with another pupil, but I don’t have information on what you are talking about,” he stated.
The FCT police spokesman, Anjuguri Manzah, said the police had opened an investigation into the incident, adding that the case would be transferred to the Command Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department for discreet investigation.
