Ibadan School Injury Case Raises Questions Over Safety and Communication Breakdown

(The injured child. Photo credit: Screenshot)

A concerned parent has raised an alarm over an incident involving her son at an elementary school in Ibadan, Oyo State, alleging negligence by the school after the pupil sustained injuries that required stitches and medical treatment.

In a video circulating online and obtained on Friday, the parent said her son fell within the school premises, sustaining a deep injury to his head and developing subsequent complications, including pain in his leg and difficulty walking.

She said she was not one to publicly criticise people but felt compelled to speak out about what happened to her son at the school.

She described the injury as severe, explaining that the cut to the middle of her son's forehead was deep enough that doctors had to stitch it twice, totalling roughly ten stitches, and that he also underwent a scan.

The mother further alleged that the school failed to properly account for how the incident occurred, raising concerns about the unavailability of CCTV footage and the response of staff at the time of the fall.

She said her efforts to obtain the footage were unsuccessful, with the school citing a technical issue, namely that the facility was switching from public power supply to an inverter for about seven to eight minutes, which she said raised questions as to why the moment of the incident went unrecorded.

She also alleged a breakdown in communication from the school afterward, claiming she was blocked from a parents' group page and that no one from the school reached out to check on her son's condition.

Responding to the allegations, the Chairman of the Oyo State Rapid Response Team on Gender-Based Violence, Marcus Williams, said a fact-finding visit to the school found that the incident was accidental and that the school's response had been appropriate.

He explained that his team visited the school after seeing the social media posts, inspected the scene and was briefed by management on what had transpired.

According to Williams, school officials explained that after the child was injured, he was taken to a nearby hospital, with the school providing initial financial support for treatment.

He said the school contacted the boy's mother while en route to the hospital, and she later joined them there, where the child received treatment.

Williams said investigators identified a possible cause of the injury during their inspection, noting a puncture point on a wall that the child may have struck his head against, leading to the cut.

On the matter of the CCTV system, he said it had experienced faults and power interruptions at the time, which may have affected recording, and he recommended that the school adopt backup power solutions to prevent similar gaps in future.

He added that the school presented a signed child protection policy and that its handling of the incident appeared consistent with safeguarding procedures, describing the matter overall as an accident that was, in his assessment, properly managed.

However, Williams said the situation escalated mainly due to a breakdown in communication between the school's leadership and the mother.

He explained that the proprietress did not respond promptly to the mother's messages, not out of disregard, but because she was at a prayer meeting at the time, while the mother's growing anxiety led her to send repeated messages that the proprietress found difficult to engage with under pressure.

He suggested that better communication at that stage could have prevented the situation from escalating to its current point.

Williams said he had since reached out to the mother and that both she and her son had been invited for further engagement with the Ministry of Women and Child Welfare Department, adding that the matter remains under review as both parties continue dialogue toward a resolution.

𝐕𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐎: 𝐌𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐧𝐞𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐬𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐣𝐮𝐫𝐲 𝐢𝐧 𝐎𝐲𝐨 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥

A concerned parent has raised an alarm over an incident involving her son at an elementary school in Ibadan, Oyo state, alleging negligence by… pic.twitter.com/u7P45c2xRy

— Punch Newspapers (@MobilePunch) June 19, 2026