Lagos opposes alleged plan to exhume student’s corpse

The Lagos State Government has responded to an alleged plot to bury the body of Whitney Adeniran, a 12-year-old student. Chrisland SchoolLagos, who died during inter-house sports, in February.

The government said it would reject the request for the exhumation, adding that it did not want to “traumatize the family of the deceased.”

This was announced in a statement signed on Saturday by the Director of Public Affairs of the Ministry of Justice, Grace Alo, stating that “in any case, the conditions for exhumation according to the Coroner System Law, 2015 do not arise in this case”.

The rumor went viral after the dead student’s mother, Blessing Adeniran, said that Chrisland School had requested another autopsy for the deceased who was buried on Thursday.

She wrote on her Instagram account, “CHRISLAND!!! Play all your games!!! They only call the police if they want a re-autopsy. They want to bury my son’s body to sell to others. These people are a joke!”

Autopsy report

At Lagos State Government It was earlier confirmed that a post-mortem report dated March 1 and issued by the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital revealed that the student died of “asphyxia and electrocution”.

It also assured Lagosians that “anyone found guilty will be immediately charged to court.”

The government in a new statement said that it is now cooperating with the police “who have given assurances that the duplicate case file will be forwarded on Monday, March 6, 2023 to the Directorate of Public Prosecutions to assist the issuance of legal advice as soon as possible”.

In response to the controversy over the student’s death, the government also ordered the school to be closed indefinitely.

The background

After the student’s death, the parents of the deceased accused the school management of negligence.

He took to social media to call for public intervention to unravel the circumstances that led to the sudden death of his daughter while participating in a sporting event held at the Agege Stadium in Lagos.

His parents contended that the lack of an ambulance or first responders at the venue of the sporting event contributed to the student’s death.

In reaction, the Chairman of the school’s Advisory Board, Ike Ofuokwu, noted in a statement that the deceased 12-year-old “slumped in public view and was not in a hidden state.”

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“Our immediate response is to take advantage of the distance by identifying the nearest medical facility to take him, where the doctor on duty will give him oxygen and all the help he can,” Mr Ofuokwu said.