A secondary school in Osogbo, Osun State, Fakunle Unity High School, hurriedly shut down academic activities on Tuesday, when some pupils became unconscious after inhaling teargas fired by men of Mopol 39 Base, located directly opposite the school premises.
A source in the school, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told The Punch that pupils were already in their various classes when teargas fired by the riot policemen engaging in their morning drills filtered into the premises.
As a result, some of the pupils lost consciousness, after inhaling the gas, and were rushed to a private hospital located near the school for treatment, while others were taken to Osun State University Teaching Hospital, Osogbo.
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One of the parents, simply identified as Gideon, told The Punch that he was told to check Osun State University Teaching Hospital, Osogbo, for his daughter, who was said to have been affected by the teargas.
He said, “When I got here, I was told to check Uniosun Teaching Hospital for my daughter. The students have been sent home after about 20 of them lost consciousness after inhaling tear gas fired by the men of the Mopol base here.”
The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Adelani Aderinola, through the Information Officer, Roseline Olawuni said the mobile policemen were holding memorial exercise in honour of their fallen colleagues in Benue state when they used the tear-gas that affected the students.
“They were shooting tear gas which affected the students on the school. However, the matter has been escalated to the Police Commissioner and has stopped the exercise. The students have been taken to the hospital and most of them have been stabilised.”
The spokesperson of Osun State Police Command, Yemisi Opalola confirmed that the police did not fire the tire gas inside the school but they were just using it for their drill.” We have ordered them to stop the action. We are sorry for inconvenience.”
The Head of Corporation Osun ambulance, Mrs Arowosafe Elizabeth Olayemi explained that, “We move 11 patients to Uniosun and the others were taken to spring hospital very close to the school at Aderin, because before we got there the school authority already took the students to the private hospital, you know we cannot just disagree with them because the lives of the students are so important to us.
“So, we have to agree with them, it is when the Spring hospital was occupied, we moved the remaining students to Uniosun. We have 11 at Uniosun and the remaining students are at Spring Hospital.
“In all, about 35 student were rushed to the hospitals, according to the information given to us.
“We were there early enough, within 5 minutes we were there because we have an ambulance close to that place, we have an ambulance at stadium and you know that place is closer, immediately they call me I told them to move down to the school and immediately I ask them to release the students to go home because the more they inhale that thing the more the people were fainting, so I told the principal to release the students to go home so that we can reduce the number.”
