Popular human rights activist and lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), has taken over the case of Whitney Adeniran, the late student of Chrisland High School.
Falana’s law firm, Falana & Falana Chambers will now represent the Adeniran family as efforts toward a coroner’s inquest into the case begins.
Recall that Whitney, the 12-year-old student died during a sports event in Lagos on February 9.
Blessing, the deceased student’s mother, accused Chrisland School of negligence in handling her daughter’s case before she died.
She claimed the school made no provision for emergency response at the event, hence didn’t administer first aid.
The mother said the girl had no pre-existing heart condition despite the doctor’s allusion to a cardiac arrest.
READ ALSO: Father Demands Investigation As 12-Year-Old Chrisland Student Dies During Inter-House Sports
Meanwhile, the Lagos State Ministry of Education has ordered a temporary closure of the school, pending an investigation into the matter.
But Falana of Falana & Falana’s Chambers in a letter dated February 14, 2023 and signed by a legal practitioner, Taiwo Olawanle on behalf of the law firm, urged the Chief Coroner to use “your good offices to cause a coroner’s inquest to be conducted into the cause of the death of this sudden but avoidable death of this young promising girl and make appropriate recommendations under Section 15 of the Lagos State Coroner’s Law 2007 which provides that an inquest shall hold whenever a coroner is informed that the death of a deceased person within his Coroner District is as a result of a death in a violent, unnatural or suspicious situation.”
The letter also read, “We are a firm of legal practitioners committed to the defence of human rights, rule of law and public accountability in Nigeria.
“We have been engaged by the family of the late Whitney Adeniran to facilitate the unraveling of the mystery behind her sudden death at Chrisland International High School, Opebi, Lagos on Thursday, February 9, 2023.
“It was alleged that the young girl went to school on the day with no sign of any ailment only for the parents to get to know later that she had passed on without any justifiable explanation from the school management.
“Please Your Lordship, accept the assurances of the highest regards of our principal, Mr Femi Falana, SAN.”
