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• How primary school pupils escape death by whiskers
From Lateef Dada, Osogbo
Some people believe that a mother cannot deliberately put rotten eggs in the food for her children, knowing the implications on the health of such children. She would rather ask the children to be vegetarian.
Apparently, for fear of loss, a food vendor engaged by the government to provide free food to pupils of St James Primary School, Owo-Ope, Osogbo, Osun State, purportedly served a rotten egg to primary one to three of about 130 pupils and 18 of them got home and started vomiting and stooling.
•One of the parents of the affected pupils
The strange incident happened on Monday, December 11th, 2023. Parents of the pupils met at the hospital where they had taken their children for treatment having discovered that they were vomiting and stooling. The pupils on the hospital bed confessed that they ate rotten egg and rice as one of them said “I found a small hen inside my egg and I ate it.”
The state government had taken responsibility for their medical care after withdrawing the pupils from a quack doctor where the poor parents rushed them to and took them to the government hospital for proper care.
Nobody knew the number of rotten eggs served and efforts to see the food vendor in charge of the school have been futile. Also, efforts to see the owner of the hospital where some of the pupils were first taken proved abortive. The hospital was a house without a sign to know it was a hospital. People inhabit the place as findings showed that ‘Doki’ as popularly called, rented a room where he was attending to patients.
The pupils have been discharged, hale and hearty, but the government is still wondering why only 18 pupils would be affected out of 130 pupils in primary 1 to 3 served the free meal.
The Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, Kolapo Alimi, said, “The governor directed that further investigation should be carried out on the pupils because they ate contaminated food. We learned that food was served to about 130 pupils, how could 18 of them be affected?
“The period that the students were served the food was between 11:30 am to 12noon every day but the alleged incident occurred around evening time at 5.00 pm. We are going to get to the root of the matter to know if the food eaten in the school caused health issues or any other things,” Alimi said.
Also, in a statement made available to Journalists, the Special Adviser to the Governor on O-Meal, Ayodele Oluwaseyi, said findings of the government investigation showed the inconsistency in the testimonies of some of the parents as well as the shady circumstances between the morning feeding and alleged food poisoning late at night.
“The report highlighted also the involvement of an opposition operative who stayed around the school and who videoed and distributed the arranged video with many in the video denying stories of food poisoning. The government has subsequently invited the security agencies to investigate the matter to bring those behind the fake drama and video to book.
“Opening up on the outcome of an investigation ordered by Governor Ademola Adeleke was the Special Adviser to the Governor on O-Meal programme, Grace Ayodele, who declared pointedly that some pupils of St James Primary School, Owo-Ope in Osogbo were not poisoned from a meal served by a vendor of the programme.
“The circumstances surrounding the alleged poisoning, as it appear peculiar in that affected pupils originate from the same street and were transported to the same hospital by their parents simultaneously and were video-recorded concurrently.
“The clinical tests conducted at the teaching hospital confirmed no traces of food poisoning and the affected vendors have been discharged accordingly, the Governor’s aide declared.
“The reported food poisoning should not be associated with the mid-day meal given to the pupils by the O’Meals food vendors. The whole allegation was discovered to be politically initiated by some miscreants who intended to score a cheap political goal.”
Similarly, the Chairman, of the Medical Advisory Committee and Deputy CMD of Osun State University Teaching Hospital, Dr. Babatunde Afolabi, said food poisoning was not ascertained in their clinical examination, though he admitted that the pupils were stable before they were brought for checkups.
He said, “We received a total of 32 students brought by the ministry in charge of O’Meal. As the head of clinical services, I invited all the directors in various areas like laboratory science, pharmacy, nursing services, and others. We have three consultants one of whom is a professor to do a review to know the situation of the children. Each of them was tested and re-evaluated. We discovered that they were in a very stable state. Only one has some degree of weakness. From the test, there is nothing we can say is the findings. Some of them were given antibiotics. The weak one was admitted and discharged later. They were all in a stable state now.
“It is difficult to say that they had food poison. Most of the cooks come here and they do periodic assessments. They came in June. The alleged food poisoning can not be ascertained because they were stable when they were brought here,” Afolabi said.
When our Correspondent visited the area, one of the parents, Rasidat Wasiu, faulted the claim that it was not the food that caused problems for the children, saying “I have two children in the school. One did not eat his egg, he gave his younger brother. Nothing happened to the one that did not eat the egg. How then will anybody think that something else happened to the children
Another parent, Blessing Ojo said, “I have three children in the school. Two are in primary 1 and one is in primary 3. They were vomiting and stooling. It was when I got to the hospital that I met some parents with similar issues. Could we have all planned it or been paid by a politician to act the same way?
Also, Lukman Kafayat, who claimed to have four children in the school, said; “Only one of them ate the egg. When I returned from hawking, they told me that he was vomiting and stooling. It is the egg they ate in the school that affected them.
Irewumi Omolara, said, “My children returned from school on Monday and they were stooling and vomiting. We rushed them to the hospital while I ran to borrow money to pay the hospital bill. Though the government promised to refund our money, we have not seen them. We saw black traces of what they ate.”
