Death Of Keren Akpagher: Premier Academy School Exonerates Self
The management of Premier Academy, Lugbe, Abuja on Thursday reiterated that the SS1 female student, Keren Akpagher, who died on 22nd June 2021, at a private hospital in Wuse Zone6, area of the city, was hale and hearty when she left the school along with her mother on Friday, June 18, 2021.
Keren Akpagher, a 14-year-old female student of the school was alleged to have died from hyperglycemia triggered by sepsis resulting from infection caused by a decaying condom allegedly found in her.
But, speaking to newsmen during a press briefing in Abuja, Mrs Stella Oluremi Fawehinmi, founding Executive Director of the School, said even though Keren had an underlying health challenge being an insulin-dependent patient, she was hale and hearty when her mother, Mrs Akpagher, Vihimga Vivien, came to pick her from the school.
“Keren was taken to hospital at the request of her mother accompanied by one of the school’s nurses and after they came back, she requested to go back home for the weekend which was granted to her.
“You will see the clip when Keren left the school, how very happy she was with her colleagues, how they all hugged her, and she went to meet the parents outside.
“I think that is something the children will never ever forget. And they will be thinking how could that have been the last hug. She went out of here Hale and hearty” she said.
A video clip that captured the last 48 hours of Keren was played to members of the press ostensibly to show that the girl was not sick when she left the school on Friday, June 18, 2021.
According to Fawehinmi, the claim made by Keren’s mother at a recent press conference that the girl was distraught when she came to pick her up from the school was not true, and urged the Gender-based Violence Responders (GVR), organizers of the conference, not to use Keren’s death to seek cheap popularity.
“It is not a time for anybody to stand up and be the rabble-rouser and not let us get to the root of what killed the hard-working student Keren 48 hours after she left school. It is not a time to make all kinds of insinuations, distorted information, all kinds of melodrama, weeping up sentiments, you don’t scorn people in death.
“You don’t use Keren’s death to climb up for your personal aggrandisement. Don’t use Keren’s death to seek cheap popularity. Don’t tell lies about Keren’s death to pull down your neighbour” she added.
She maintained that there has never been any case of sexual abuse in Premier Academy Lugbe in 16 years, stressing that the school has put in place superb supervision methods, and many Closed Circuit Television CCTV Cameras to ensure adequate protection of the students and workers in the school.
“You want to know how much supervision we have in this school, how many CCTV cameras we have, how we deal with any staff, somebody said we said there is no sexual abuse in the school. Yes, there is no sexual abuse in the academy. And I say it again, there has never been any sexual abuse in the Premier Academy in 16 years” added Fawehinmi.
Although the autopsy was conducted to unravel the cause of death of Keren Akpagher, Fawehinmi said the board of the school has vowed to followup and get to the root of what actually transpired leading to the death of the girl, who she described as hard-working and determined to make a mark and help humanity despite her health challenges.
Also speaking, Grace Salami, the School Clinic Matron, said Keren came into the school with a history of type 1, diabetes melytus, which her mother said was diagnosed when she was nine years old.
According to her, the late Keren has been on insulin injections twice daily from nine years of age, which the school has properly managed including a special diet to suit her health condition.
“When I got to the Queen’s Clinic Wuse Zone 6, I met the girl in a coma, her breathing was not okay medically to me. I started asking questions again, I told the mother that when she called me in the morning, what she said was that the girl was delirious, of course, her hands were tied, her legs were tied, medically, it is okay, you can use it to restrain a patient that is struggling. But, because at that point in time I wasn’t expecting to meet her in a coma since the mother said she was delirious in the morning,
|I now ask her, she said yes she was sedated because she was still struggling. I wasn’t comfortable with that statement. I asked her how well she knows that hospital and she said she knows them very well that they even have a branch in Makurdi that she uses. And again, I suggested that can we move her out of this hospital she said no, that she is okay with the hospital. I asked to see the doctor because to me, at that point in time I feel the girl needed oxygen.
“But she told me they said the doctor has closed for the day. I was there till about 7 in the evening, I didn’t see the doctor, I didn’t see the condom because she told me they said decayed condom in her private part, and that her urine contained dead spermatozoa. She is not a medical person, but judging from my medical angle, I knew that it is not possible because a condom is a latex it cannot decay.
“If it has stayed in a place for long, the texture could change, the appearance could be altered but not to decay. And if it has stayed there for long we could not be seeing dead spermatozoa there” rationalized the Matron.
