No fewer than 1,000 pupils of Queen’s College, Yaba, Lagos, have been taken home by their parents after the outbreak of what is suspected to be an infection.
“It is over 1,000 (pupils) now as we speak. See, I cannot talk about what I don’t know. What you have in your palm, you don’t need a mirror to look at it,” the Chairman of the Parents Teacher Association, John Ofobike, told PUNCH correspondent on Monday.
It was learnt that the pupils started falling sick after resuming about two weeks ago. The school’s sickbay was said to be crowded with pupils, as many were also laid on benches to create extensions.
However, the school principal, Dr Yakubu Oyinloye, could not be reached on the telephone and she had yet to respond to a text message from the press.
However, a former President of the Old Girls Association of the school, Prof. Frances Ajose, said a group in the PTA was ganging up against the principal, adding that some of the parents also had personal interest.
Ajose explained that there was no typhoid infection in the school contrary to the widespread rumor of typhoid outbreak. She said, “A group in the PTA is only tormenting the principal for personal gain. The principal is a very hard-working and efficient person. She has been running the school well.
“What is happening in Queen’s College is an upper respiratory tract infection, which is raging right now all over Lagos due to the weather. It is not peculiar to Queen’s College. The infection arose from the overcrowding in the dormitory, a problem we have been crying about as old girls,” she said.
According to the PUNCH, the Deputy Director, Press and Public Relations, Federal Ministry of Education, Mr Ben Goong, did not take his calls and had yet to respond to a text message seeking his reaction to the incident.
Recall about two years ago, three pupils of the school died from water-borne infections, which drew outrage from many Nigerians who called for investigation into the crisis.
