The Justice for Sylvester Oromoni Committee (JSOC) has demanded the immediate release of findings of the coroner inquest into the death of Sylvester Oromoni Jnr, a JSS 2 student of Dowen College, Lekki, Lagos.
Oromoni, it will be recalled, reportedly died from an alleged torture by some students of the college which necessitated the Lagos State government to launch an investigation into the cause of his death.
The boy died on November 30, 2021, four days to his 12th birthday on January 4, 2022, from an alleged torture and administration of a poisonous substance allegedly forced down his throat by some identified senior students of the college.
Speaking on the delay in making the inquests findings public, JSOC appealed to the Lagos State government, the judiciary and other well-meaning Nigerians to prevail on members of the Coroner to immediately make their findings and recommendations public in the interest of justice for the deceased.
The outcry was made public in a statement signed by the group’s Coordinator, Elder Regent Youmor, and made available to journalists on Monday in Warri, Delta State, the deceased’s home state.
The group said it had become very necessary for the Coroner to immediately declare its findings for the parties involved to take the next line of action in ensuring that justice prevailed.
It decried the almost two years delay in investigating the cause of death of their son, noting that such prolonged investigation was no longer in the best interest of the family and the public.
“It’s unthinkable to see that a Coroner Inquest that is usually set up with a specific terms of reference and a short time frame to accomplish its findings and submit its findings to enable parties involved take the next line of action open to them in any particular case is now the one foot dragging to make report public.
“From our little experience of how Coroner Inquest works, the members are allowed to sit even on Sundays, in order to be able to meet up with the specified time frame it’s being given but in the case, we have an Inquest that adjourns for two months, come back to sit briefly again and then take another three months adjournment for no good reasons.
“Gradually, it’s becoming very obvious that the Coroner is deliberately doing this to frustrate the family of the deceased to give up on the case, as we want to believe that there is more to the Coroner delay tactics in this matter than meets the ordinary eye.
“As it stands now, we are being forced to believe that someone or group of persons, may have been sponsoring the members to embark on this delayed proceedings as a way of either buying time to manipulate its report or frustrate the family to lose interest in the case so that the perpetrators of the dastardly act that took our son’s life can go scot free.
“It is based on this, that we the concerned Ijaw indigenes both at home and in the diaspora are calling on both the federal and Lagos state governments, the judiciary, as well as well-meaning Nigerians to prevail on the Coroner Inquest to make public its findings so that the family can proceed with its next line of action,” the statement reads.
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