Delta Govt Assures Justice for Boy Who Died after Flogging

Omon-Julius Onabu

The Delta government has assured that it will follow to a logical conclusion the case of the fatal flogging of a 19-month-old pupil of a private school in Asaba to ensure justice.

The boy, before his death, attended Arise and Shine Nursery and Primary School in Asaba. The government has ordered the school’s closure.

Commissioner for information, Mr Charles Aniagwu, said on Monday in Asaba that the state government was interested in the matter.

Aniagwu told journalists, after a brief meeting with the commissioner of police in Delta, Ari Muhammed Ali, that the government was satisfied with the police’s handling of the matter.

Flanked by Ali, the Commissioner for Basic Education, Mr Chika Ossai and the Commissioner for Humanitarian Services, Bridget Anyafulu, Aniagwu said every step was being taken to ensure justice.

The police commissioner assured a full-scale investigation into the matter, adding that the police were awaiting the child’s autopsy, which would determine the cause of the child’s death.

He observed that the child’s mother had, after school hours, “observed that the child had some marks,” which she took up the following day with the GRA Police Division in the state capital.

According to him, the mother and his teacher, who is also the school’s proprietress, were immediately invited and later arrested.

The teacher accused of flogging the child denied flogging the kid to death.

“I flogged him as little as I can flog a child, but I didn’t flog him to death,” the 24-year-old suspect, Mr Emeka Joshua, son of the school’s proprietress, told journalists at the police command headquarters in Asaba.

Explaining why he flogged the child, Joshua stated that the little boy (victim) had “pushed another child down and that child hit his head on the ground.”

Meanwhile, First lady Dame Edith Okowa paid a condolence visit to the deceased’s mother on Monday.