A pupil of the Landmark International School, Mgbakwu in Awka North Local Government Area of Anambra State, Henry Okonkwo, who was reportedly beaten to a coma by a teacher has died.
It was gathered that the boy gave up the ghost in the early hours of Wednesday.
The PUNCH had reported that a 30-year-old teacher at the school, Faith Nwonye, was arrested for allegedly beating the eight-year-old pupil into a coma, on Monday.
Nwoye had earlier been invited by the Commissioner for Education, Prof. Ngozi Chuma-Udeh, to explain what led to the brutalisation of the child on Monday, May 20, 2024.
Chuma-Udeh had expressed sadness over the development, lamenting that the chances of the victim’s survival currently in admission to a hospital are 20 per cent, according to the medical doctor.
She said the school was running illegally describing the development as a crime running an illegal school in the state as well as beating a child, the commissioner warned that perpetrators were doing so at their peril.
The teacher was invited alongside the school’s Proprietor in which the incident happened, Mrs Promise Ilo.
The development led to the temporary shutting down of the school while an investigation was said to have begun.
The teacher who admitted flogging the child, however, stated that the flogging was not as severe as the picture was painted.
The matter was handed over to the police for investigation, while the child was in the intensive care unit of the hospital, from where he later gave up the ghost in the early hours of Wednesday.
Taking to her verified Facebook wall on Thursday, the commissioner lamented the death of the boy, saying he was a boy like any other, with hopes and aspirations.
She wrote, “He was a boy like any other, with hopes and aspirations. He went to school for a better future but met a gruesome death at the hands of the people who were supposed to help him achieve his life ambition.
“A quack teacher in an illegal school bludgeoned him to death. We mourn a life nipped in the bud! We mourn Henry Chukwuemeka Okonkwo! We mourn and we seek justice.”
