Mother speaks out after son gets hurt in Oyo school

A worried parent has raised concerns about an incident involving her son at an elementary school in Ibadan, Oyo state. She claims the school was negligent after her child got injured and needed stitches and medical care.

In a video shared on Friday, the mother said her son fell on the school grounds, causing a serious head injury. He also experienced pain in his leg and had trouble walking afterward.

“I’m not the kind of person to come outside to badmouth people, but you see this one… I’m going to talk about it, and this happened to my son in his school,” she said.

She stated that the injury was serious and needed medical attention, including stitches and a scan.

“My son fell, his head got cut, the middle of his forehead… it was a very deep cut that they couldn’t even leave it like that. They had to stitch his head… they stitched it twice… like 10 stitches across,” she explained.

The mother also accused the school of not properly explaining how the accident happened. She raised issues about the CCTV footage and how staff responded when her son fell.

She said attempts to get the CCTV footage were not successful. The school claimed there were technical problems at the time of the incident.

“They said they were changing from NEPA to inverter for a span of seven to eight minutes,” she said, questioning why the incident was not recorded.

She claimed there was poor communication from the school. She mentioned being blocked from a parents’ group page and that the school did not check on her child's condition.

But the Chairman of the Oyo State Rapid Response Team on Gender-Based Violence, Marcus Williams, responded to her claims. He said a visit to the school showed that the incident was an accident and that the school acted appropriately.

After visiting the school, Williams stated, “When we saw the social media posts, we went to that school for fact-finding.”

He added that officials looked at the scene of the incident and spoke with the school management about what happened.

“What they explained was that an incident occurred that got a child injured. And that after the injury, they responded by taking the child to a nearby hospital,” he said.

According to him, the school also helped with initial costs for treatment and contacted the mother, who later met them at the hospital.

“While they were going to the hospital, they called the mother of the child to come and she also met them at the hospital. So, treatment was given to the child. That was what happened,” he said.

Williams noted that investigators found a possible cause of the injury during their inspection.

“There was this puncture point on the wall where probably the child fell head… that the child must have hit the head on that led to that cut,” he said.

On the issue of the CCTV footage, Williams said the system had issues and power cuts at the time, which may have affected recording. He suggested that the school should have backup power for future incidents.

Williams added that the school shared its child protection policy, which staff members signed. He said the school’s response matched safety procedures.

“Overall, it was an accident. Overall. How they managed it, from what the school told me, was in order,” he stated.

He pointed out that the situation got worse because of poor communication between the school and the mother.

“However, the interrelationship, the communication gap… as a result of the fact that as the woman was sending the messages, the proprietress was not responding,” he said.

Williams explained that the proprietress was not available because she was at a prayer meeting. He added that the mother’s worries also added to the tension.

“It’s not that she (proprietress) ignored her calls, but the mother was agitated… she was worried, and then she started sending messages, so that woman felt it was too hard to pick,” he said.

He said better communication could have stopped the situation from escalating.

“So, if only that communication gap had not happened, we would not be having this conversation right now,” he said.

He also mentioned that he had spoken to the mother and that both the parent and child had been invited for further discussion at the Ministry of Women and Child Welfare Department.

The matter is still being looked into as both parties continue to talk while authorities aim for a solution.