[Editorial] Sylvester Oromoni’s Autopsy Reports: Need For Caution

The emerging controversy trailing the two different reports of the autopsies  conducted in Warri and Lagos by pathologists on the late 12-year-old Sylvester Oromoni of Dowen College, Lekki Lagos is something all parties should not allow to rage further, if medical  procedures adopted in the two exercises are anything to go by.

The controversy seemed to have been precipitated by the declaration last Friday by the Lagos State Police Commissioner Hakeem Odumosu that a case of murder had been ruled out by the autopsy reports upon which the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) had based his legal advice.

Based on the DPP’s advice, the Lagos Police authorities were emboldened to release the five students and five staff arrested and detained in connection with the death of Oromoni.

Family of the deceased seemed not to believe the report of the autopsy conducted in Lagos by a team of pathologists and other doctors as there appeared a slight difference in the report of the first conducted by Oromoni’s lawyer in Warri from what the Lagos doctors arrived at.

The Oromoni family is also pained that the Lagos State Government through the DPP acting in concert with the police could hastily draw a conclusion on the matter and giving a verdict of innocence on the accused persons when their late son before he died had disclosed how he was tortured and forced to drink chemical substance.

Even though all the pathologists assembled together to carry out the second autopsy in Lagos were in agreement as to the cause of death, the deceased family has seriously suspected some conspiracy between the medical professionals, police and Lagos State Government.

Counsel to the Oromoni family, Femi Falana has also punctured the celebrated clean bill given to the suspects by the DPP and police describing the verdict as “escapist and hasty” as according to him, the report of a Coroner’s Inquest instituted by the Lagos State Government has not been concluded.

Some sources hinted that the Lagos State Government may have chosen to direct whole affairs in a manner that students of Dowen College implicated in the matter and the college itself were exonerated from anything likely to leave a bad image for the school as one of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s children had graduated from the school.

This is believed to have added to the intentions of the authorities to promptly set the accused free to enable life return to normal in the College even though Government is yet to officially re-open the school.

With the current scenario  laden with high degree of suspicion,  no discernible mind can conclude with all certainty that what the pathologists said is exactly the true situation given the suspicion in certain quarters that some highly placed persons had covertly or overtly interfered with a view to perverting justice due to vested interest.

securityreporters.com here, expresses its support with those calling for a thorough review of the whole process which from the outset seemed to have been planned to fail when a so called investigative journalist, Kemi Olunloyo was reported as saying that the late Sylvester Oromoni consented to being tortured when he accepted to belong to the cult group which members attempted to initiate him.

Police had initially reacted to such posturing of Olunloyo but nothing seemed to have been heard again on the matter, thereby widening the scope of the conspiracy theory.

We would therefore enjoin the Lagos State Government to revisit the entire process and save itself from what may be a calculated attempt to aid evil in our society.