Praise Sodipo must not die in vain

Those of us with children in boarding school will admit that one never truly relaxes until they are back home on holiday without any health complaint. So, I perfectly understand how parents of Queen’s College students must have been feeling with happenings in the school since January.

It was therefore with keen interest that I’ve been following events in the school after an outbreak of cholera early this year. When the tanks storing water for the students were cleaned aftermath of the outbreak and public outcry, the sludge taken out would melt even a stony hearted person.

But lives were lost. As at the last count, three girls have died consequent of the neglect and lackadaisical approach in tackling the epidemic by the school officials and the federal ministry of education that superintend the school. Typical of such occurrence in our country, it always starts with a denial and attempts at covering the sordid detail. Probably the principal, Lami Amodu, later transferred as a result of these avoidable deaths, did not reckon with the openness forced on our lives by social media, the story did not go away. Backed with vociferous parents and an active alumni body, it could not be wrapped up in secrecy. Another sad chapter of the epidemic ended or begun depending on whichever angle you look at it, last week when another student was interred last Thursday at the Atan cemetery in Lagos.

Praise Sodipo, 14, became another casualty of negligence and wickedness of those vested with the responsibility of protecting lives. In these days of cascading political issues and its attendant focus on our leaders, the teenager’s death might not be more than a footnote. But to add more to the pain, she was an orphan. While not diminishing the other two girls, Vivian Ousiniyi and Bithia Itulua; who died earlier, hers should not be swept under the carpet. For a girl who lost her parents when she was eight and an only child, it was such a cruel way to go. The lamentation of her guardian also says a lot about the state of our health care. He said she was under treatment for malaria until further tests were carried out and it was discovered she had an enlarged liver and perforated intestine.  “The sickness started from the school, but they refused to inform us. It was when my wife went to pick her for the midterm break that she discovered that the girl had been terribly sick and was admitted to the sickbay,” Lawrence Otun, the guardian, said in a newspaper interview.

What, however, added more to the pain was the admittance by Jonathan Mbaka, director of basic and secondary education in the Federal Ministry of Education, that his ministry truly failed the students and their parents. He admitted that a monitoring team of the quality assurance unit of the ministry inspected the school before the outbreak. Yet, they did not detect anything neither did the monitors’ report foresaw the impending danger.

“The report was submitted to the directorate of that ministry. But the directorate didn’t pass the report to other departments for action. They just kept it in the office.

“Unfortunately, it was this week that I was able to get access to that report. It is a little lapse on our part. But it is a procedural issue and when procedure has existed for too long, to change it becomes an issue. No one expected such to happen; other reports had been kept like that and nothing happened,” Mr. Mbaka told journalists. Yet, the gentleman is still in his position and will likely be unable to access such reports again in the future. The school principal only got a slap on the wrist; she was transferred from the school. All these happened even after a visit to the school by the health minister who ordered an investigation and also a press conference by Lagos State health commissioner who asked the school to delay its resumption. He confirmed the epidemic citing laboratory tests and site visits by the state officials to the school.

Till date, not a word from Mr. Adamu Adamu, our imperial education minister, who in his former job as a journalist could have actually written on the issue. After whining and shrugging shoulders, we will move on, leaving the families involved to mourn their losses until another epidemic breaks out elsewhere. It is a school maintained by public funds and so Nigerians deserve to know what actually happened while officials found to be negligent in their duties deserved the maximum punishment. That is when Praise Sodipo’s death would not have been in vain and also save the lives of others in such schools.