Parents accuse high school authorities of shielding mystery
perpetrator in elaborate cover-up School expresses
disappointment, dismiss allegations as ‘very wrong’
The school was silent when Ebunoluwa Adegboyega became the bullies’ favourite. At age 10, her bruises were legion. Her mind was a mist of scars. But nobody could see her wince. Through her ordeal, a battle ravaged in Ebunoluwa’s head; harsh words lunged like savages to scathe her fragile mien. The bullies called her “Orobo,” and that was almost too farfetched, as Ebunoluwa didn’t exactly cut the picture of obesity – at least by her parents’ standards.
While the bullies taunted her over size, Ebunoluwa lived the blithe life of a castle princess in her parent’s homestead. Nonetheless, the 10-year-old student of Junior Secondary School One (J.S.S.1) class, Grace Schools, Gbagada, Lagos, stirred every morning with a violent tremor in her heart. As she dressed up for school, she girded up like a medieval warrior, to brave the taunts and insolent jeers of peer that deemed it fit to pick on her.
From whispered slurs and spoken taunts about her size, which often elicited the derisive remark, ‘Orobo,’ to the occasional blow on the head from the palm and book of “Uchenna,” one of her alleged assailants, Ebunoluwa suffered interminable hurt and sorrow in pursuit of a high school education.
Her experience at Grace Schools was hardly what she and her parents expected at her resumption in the educational facility. But it was easier not to ask too many questions or raise a ruckus about Ebunoluwa’s plight. Although her mother, Dr. Bande Adegboyega, a gynecologist, wished to raise hell, her father, Dr. Temitope Adegboyega, a pediatrician, believed in letting the hostilities thaw out. “Children will always play,” he said,
But that childish ‘play’ would degenerate into a vicious encounter. Ebunoluwa, unfortunately, could neither avoid nor ride the tide of the playful viciousness. A trip to the school canteen would cost the 10-year-old and her parents very much. On April 15, 2016, during lunch break, somebody shoved Ebunoluwa violently from the back while she stood outside the school canteen. She fell face down; the impact of her fall crushed both her legs and bruised her skin. Consequently, Ebunoluwa suffered fractures on both legs.
Ebunoluwa’s story: ‘They did not try to find out who pushed me’
“On that day, I went to the dining hall to eat during lunch break in my school. When I came out of the canteen, I came out with three people in my class. Their names are Jumaima, Grace and Sophia. I talked to them a little. Then they started moving on their own. They were going. When I now wanted to take my own step, someone came from the back and pushed me. I didn’t see the person that pushed me. My three classmates didn’t see the person that pushed me. We were all backing the person.
“I fell on my face. Then I started calling for help. One boy, a J.S.S 2 student, came to carry me to the clinic. In the clinic, the nurse put Savlon (an antiseptic) and bandage on my left leg. I was bleeding from that leg and a wound on my right leg. I was crying because it was very painful.
“Then she said she would fix my bone back but I had a fracture and she could not fix my bone back. Then she put bandage on my leg. I could not leave the clinic on my own. I could not walk on my legs,” said Ebunoluwa.
What happened to her was an act of wickedness – Victim’s mom
Shedding light on the intrigues, Ebunoluwa’s mom, Dr. Bande Adegboyega, a gynaecologist, said: “On April 15, I was called. I had a phone call from the school nurse that I should come to the school that my daughter could not walk. While I was in the school, the driver brought Ebunoluwa with the nurse. I saw her in the car. She was crying. She was in serious pains. I looked at her legs and I noticed that they had bandaged one leg, that was the leg that was fractured, and the other leg was plastered.
“I was angry. I said they should bring her out immediately. At this point, the Principal, Mr. Ronald Cilliers, a South African, came and I challenged him: ‘I thought you had CCTV camera that covers the school?’ What surprised me however, was that the principal was too much on the defensive, trying to cover up for the school…We told the principal that what happened to her must be an act of wickedness and that we would like to see the person responsible for her accident. Instantly, he became very defensive. He said I shouldn’t say it was an act of wickedness. I didn’t see empathy in him so I just ignored him,” she said.
According to the victim’s mom, Ebunoluwa was not running when she was pushed, she was not standing on a ledge or some other elevated outthrust from the ground or platform. “She was on level ground. I saw the spot,” said Dr. Adegboyega.
There is no gainsaying Dr. Adegboyega met her daughter in a state of agonising pain. Her left leg was very swollen from the knee down to the feet. Also, the right leg which had a deep cut and had bled a lot, was plastered, while the fractured leg was bandaged. She was informed that Ebunoluwa had been administered Paracetamol. The gynaecologist, thus on her own, unaccompanied by any member of the school, rushed her daughter to the Orthopaedic Hospital, Igbobi, Lagos. She was later transferred to the Orthopaedic clinic, Gbagada General Hospital, Gbagada.
Echoes of indifference and undetected fracture
Dr. Adegboyega expresssed her disappointment at the school’s reaction to her daughter’s plight. “I was surprised that none of them called me from the school afterwards, to ask me what happened or enquire about my daughter’s health. This made me very angry. At the hospital, we did x-ray and confirmed that she suffered fracture on her left leg. But because she was able to stand on the other leg, we didn’t know that there was something wrong with her right leg. But soon we noticed blisters on her right leg. We consulted one of the consultants at the Orthopaedic Hospital, Igbobi and the consultant emphasised that the blisters were telltale signs that there was something wrong with Ebunoluwa’s right leg. The consultant surgeon confirmed that they were fracture blisters and that we shouldn’t have allowed her to stand on that leg.
“So they put Plaster of Paris (POP) on her left leg and ordered an x-ray of her right leg. The x-ray revealed that Ebunoluwa had also suffered fracture on her right leg. The consultant recommended that we confined her to a wheel chair pending the time that her fractures would heal.
“We took her home and still nobody called us from the school. I now got angry and invited a lawyer. We called the Principal but he persistently ignored our calls again. The father subsequently called the Vice Principal to complain about the school’s nonchalance to our child’s plight,” she said.
Corroborating her, Dr. Temitope Adegboyega, Ebunoluwa’s father, stated that the Vice Principal later came to meet them in Igbobi with the school’s chaplain. “He said we should give Ebunoluwa adequate medical treatment. He said we should not mind the Principal. He said we should give her all the treatment that she needed claiming the school would foot the bill.”
Seeking recompense
Afterwards the parents, accompanied by their attorney, and a close relative, allegedly held a meeting with the Vice- Principal of the School on April 19 and April 26, 2016 respectively. At the meeting, the Vice Principal reportedly assured them that the management of the school was ready to bear the costs of treatment of the injury and to also take on the responsibility of transportation of Ebunoluwa, to and from the school premises every day.
Efforts made by their lawyer to see the Principal, both in his office and on phone, and get his commitment on the above however proved abortive as he bluntly refused to give any audience, disclosed Dr. Adegboyega. The family thus, represented by their lawyer, also made demands in the letter dated April 18, 2016 as follows: that the full cost implication of treatment, nursing care and consequent management of the victim will be borne by the school management. They also demanded that the result of the investigation carried out by the school should be sent to the office of the family’s lawyer within one week of the completion and penalties imposed on the perpetrator. They demanded that Ebunoluwa’s safety be guaranteed and security measures in the school strengthened.
A history of bullying
Before Ebunoluwa’s accident, there had been previous incidents. According to her mom, “She had been bullied. She said one boy (Uchenna) used to hit her on the head. I told the father but he dismissed it, stating that it’s one of the pranks children indulge in among themselves. Even Ebunoluwa’s teacher, Mr. Balogun, said she was one of the most gentle students in the class. She was no troublemaker. She was a victim of bullying. She was persistently picked on by her mates because of her size. They called her ‘Orobo.’ The Vice Principal said we should have reported the situation a long while ago.”
Discordant tunes
The VP, Balogun subsequently provided a driver to convey Ebunoluwa to and from school every day, until the school went on midterm break. To our surprise, the following Monday, which was the school’s resumption day, we waited till 9 am and the driver that used to come for Ebunoluwa did not show up. I went to the school to see the VP but he told me off. He said my daughter should not resume in school as she was a debtor. He said my daughter was a debtor and the rule is that she must not come in. He said they only allowed her into the school that day on compassionate grounds. I was angry. I reminded him that the school did not foot the bill of my child’s medical treatment as he promised and that they abandoned us and forced us to handle the medical bills which was over N500, 000.
“But he told me to go and pay the school fees. He said we can go ahead and do whatever we liked. He said the school has competent Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) that can prolong the case. He said what can we do with our small lawyer? He said he had been personally responsible for providing transportation for my daughter to and from school all along. He said the school was never ready to assist.
“So we paid her school fees and she resumed on another day. But since the driver the VP provided had stopped coming, her father started taking her to and from school every day,” she said.
‘Leave everything to God’
Further findings suggested shady manoeuvrings after the incident. The VP reportedly instructed Ebunoluwa’s classmates to write statements about her accident, according to Dr. Adegboyega. According to her, a teacher within the school revealed to her that the next day after the incident, the VP instructed some of Ebunoluwa’s classmates to write statements indicating that nobody pushed her when she fell. He allegedly ordered them to write that Ebunoluwa was running when she fell.
“He allegedly did all that without our knowledge even though he later came to the hospital to beg us not to take legal action against the school. The teacher begged me to keep quiet and leave everything to God. I was mortified. I wondered how the Vice Principal could make minors commit such act,” she said.
‘Duty of care
Yemisi Adepoju, the victim’s lawyer, argued that, “Once a student resumes in school, the school owes the student duty of care from the moment he or she steps into its premises till closing hours when he or she departs the school for home. That was what the school (Grace Schools) had sold. The school claimed to install CCTV cameras as a security measure and the school also makes students sign anti-bullying statements.”
Indeed, the duty of care means schools must do everything reasonably possible to protect their students from foreseeable harm, injury, and death. This duty includes providing a safe environment for students, according to Sulaiman Tella, a lawyer.
According to him, when a school fails to protect its students from foreseeable harm, the law says it acted negligently. A school’s negligence makes it responsible, or liable, for the injured student’s damages.
The legal doctrine of in loco parentis
In loco parentis (a Latin term meaning “in place of the parent”) is a legal doctrine that applies to school administrators and teachers. The doctrine means that while a child is at school or away on a school-sponsored, extracurricular activity, the teacher has the responsibility and duties of the student’s parents. While in loco parentis gives teachers latitude in supervising students and student activities, the legal doctrine makes teachers and administrators liable for accidents and injuries students sustain while under their supervision.
If a child has an accident in the school, in the schoolyard, on the way to school, on the school bus or while on a school trip, the question of whether or not the school or the teachers were negligent may arise. Everything however, depends on the facts of the individual case, argued Tella.
The grim picture
Ebunoluwa’s case represents a microcosm of the violence malaise afflicting Nigerian secondary schools. Some victims however, do not live to tell their story. For instance, Iyanuoluwa Dahunsi, a 15-year-old SSS 2 pupil of Bishop Philip Academy, Ibadan, Oyo State, was hospitalised after she was reportedly slapped by Funke Fashina, who was then the secretary to the school’s Principal, on January 29, 2015.
Dahunsi subsequently developed a lingering eye problem, causing her partial blindness. Although Fashina was later arrested and charged to court for the assault, Dahunsi, never recovered from it. Barely six months later, and five days after her 15th birthday, Dahunsi died on July 22, 2015 at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH). The late teenager was buried in February this year.
And few people would forget in a hurry the heartrending saga of American elementary school girl, Ava Lynn. Photos of the bruised girl went viral on social media back in 2014 after she was reportedly attacked by a bully on the playground. According to the young girl’s mum, Lacey Harris, on Tuesday, August 26, 2014, she was called to come pick up her daughter at Arlington Elementary School in Pascagoula, Mississippi, because AvaLynn had been injured in an accident. The sight Lacey met when she got to Ava’s school was every parents’ nightmare: her daughter’s face was swollen, cut, and bruised beyond recognition.
Ava informed her mum, Lacey, that she was assaulted by another student; that she was kicked repeatedly in the face until she fell off of the slide on the school’s playground. But the school informed Lacey that there were no teachers present when the incident occurred, and because of that, no one could prove whether or not another student had harmed Ava. That there had been an accident, no other students were involved, Ava got injured, they gave her medical treatment and that was as much as they could do.
While the American constitution amply provides for and implements provisions for the protection of the American child, both at home and in school, Nigeria still fights a losing battle to replicate such feat within its social and legal framework. Nonetheless, the Child Rights Act clearly outlaws battery and physical abuse in any form, according to Betty Abah, the Executive Director, Centre for Children’s Health Education, Orientation and Protection.
Approximately six out of every 10 children in Nigeria experience some form of violence before the age of 18, while half of all children experience physical violence, according to a finding from a 2014 national survey on “Violence Against Children in Nigeria.” Hence eminent scholar of United States’ University of Georgia, Moradeke Aderibigbe Abimbola, suggested a more proactive and effective anti-bullying law for the country. She said the law should be operationalised to enhance Nigerian schools’ capacity to promptly investigate bullying cases in a timely manner and determine whether bullying has indeed occurred. She suggested a procedure for a teacher or other school employee, student, parent, guardian, or other person who has control or charge of a student, either anonymously or in such person’s name, at such person’s option, to report or otherwise provide information on bullying activity.
Oftentimes children who are repeatedly bullied and assaulted in school start to wonder if they deserved. The teacher and other administrative staff can counteract this by sitting with the child at lunch to offer counselling. “They may visit the child at home to show support and offer emotional counsel. Any expression of support is good,” argued Olayinka Otun, a child psychologist.
However, when bullying takes on a more dangerous facade, as it frequently does in high school, bystanders should be encouraged to intervene by speaking up in support of a bullied classmate. For relational aggression – name calling and gossiping – the school authority and bystanders should always take a stand, argued Rachel Oyibo, an educational psychologist and school counsellor.
“The best form of intervention is teaching kids and enlightening staff to always speak up and stand in defense of the abused particularly in established cases of bullying,” she said.
We will make sure that the press is closed down —Grace Schools’ Vice Principal, Balogun
At exactly 1:52 pm on Wednesday, July 13, 2016, The Nation reporter arrived at the school to see the Vice Principal, P.A. Balogun. About five minutes after his secretary informed him of the reporter’s presence, a very hesitant Balogun received the reporter in his office. He demanded to know The Nation’s mission in the school. No sooner was he briefed than he began to issue warnings to the reporter. He threatened that the school would “close down” any newspaper that published anything against the school.
He said: “The lawyers are already handling the case. We received a letter from their (Adegboyegas) own lawyer, and our lawyers have responded. I cannot confirm to you whether the matter is in court now or not.”
When our reporter told the Vice Principal that the lawyer to the Adegboyegas had not filed any suit in court as the aggrieved party, Balogun responded: “I don’t know, but the matter must have been in court.”
The Vice Principal condemned the allegations raised by the aggrieved family. He said: “All the allegations are wrong. The letter the family wrote to the school was very wrong. That is why the owner of the school said we should not entertain anything on the matter again.”
Playing legal roulette in Grace Schools’ administrative offices
“If anything is published, we will sue that publishing house for libel,” the VP threatened. Balogun dismissed claims that the school victimised Ebunoluwa. “How is the school victimising the child? Try and ask the family how their child is being victimised. Is it verbally, physical assault, beating? Just how? The parents of the child are medical doctors. If medical doctors are talking like that, what do you expect of a layman on the street? I am highly disappointed in them. Come, let me take you (reporter) to the Principal,” he said.
En route the Principal’s office, VP Balogun engaged the reporter in the following discussion:
Balogun: The school has two SANs (Senior Advocates of Nigeria) that are on the board here. We have notified them. They will take it over as well if any paper makes any malicious publication!
Reporter: We are not making any malicious publication. That is why we are here to get your own side of the story.
Balogun: In fact, we will make sure that the press is closed down! Honestly!
At the Principal’s office, Balogun asked the reporter to stay with the secretary while he went inside to discuss with the Principal. Three minutes later, he placed a call to the ‘owner of the school,’ to inform her of the reporter’s presence.
He said: “I have somebody here that said he is from The Nation newspaper. And he said that the family of Adegboyega made some allegations and that he has come to verify those allegations. I said they can only see our lawyers. I told him that we can’t give him any information here, that it is only our lawyer that he can talk to. I told him that if they publish anything, we will contact the SAN (Senior Advocate of Nigeria) straightaway. They shouldn’t publish anything. I told them that our lawyer is seeing their lawyer. I told him that they cannot get any information from the school. He is here now. I told the Principal and the Principal said I should report to you.
I just want him to go…I will tell him that we are not ready to give any information here.”
After making the call, he told the reporter: “I just talked to the owner of the school. She said you have no right to publish anything. And you cannot get any information for now. If there is any need for us to give you information, you can contact our lawyer. We can give you the contact,” he said.
Promptly, the reporter requested for the contact of the school’s lawyer but the Vice Principal refused to give him the lawyer’s contact. He assumed a hostile posture and ordered the reporter out of the school.
“Please, you may take your leave! If there is any need to contact our lawyers later, we can book an appointment with you,” he said.
Thus at exactly 2:15 pm, the reporter took his leave with Balogun marching briskly beside him to ensure that he (reporter) did not stop by to speak to any student or member of staff.
As he marched the reporter to the gate, the following conversation ensued:
Reporter: “The parents also alleged that the school management forced her (the victim’s) colleagues to write false statement on how the incident happened. They claimed you coached her colleagues to write that she was running when she fell and that nobody pushed her.”
Balogun: “Which of her colleagues?”
Reporter: The victim’s colleagues who were present at the time of the accident.
Balogun: (Silence)
Reporter: “So when can we book the appointment with your lawyer?”
Balogun: “Don’t worry, we will contact our lawyer. When we do so, whatever the lawyer says, we will let you know.”
Reporter: “We don’t have time, because the story will go to press soon and we need to get the school’s account.”
Balogun: “You just don’t rush to the press. It is not done anywhere.”
Reporter: “I was here yesterday (Tuesday) but I was told you had left the premises before I got here.”
Balogun: “Please, forward a letter to us to book an appointment with our lawyer.
Reporter: This is the press sir. We don’t need you to contact your lawyer on our behalf. We can always do that. We will save time if you can put a call to your lawyer now.”
Balogun: “The owner of the school has contacted the lawyer. And I have told you, our lawyers are speaking to their lawyer. Nobody should publish anything.”
As the reporter drove out of the premises, Balogun was seen discussing with the school security personnel, pointing to the reporter’s car.
