Principal, teachers mourn 14-yr-old student who drowned in Ilorin
By Sulyman Jimoh
One week after the death of Sulaiman Anas, a 14-year-old student of Junior Secondary school, Egbejila, Ilorin, the school management, staff and students have continued to mourn his demise.
The deceased had drowned while swimming alongside friends, last Monday.
Speaking on the death, the Principal of the school, Government Mrs Khadijat Ibrahim expressed deep sorrow over the incident.
“The incident is heart wrenching. It is a huge loss to the school and the bereaved parents.
“The news really saddens me, in fact I wasn’t supposed to be in school the following day which is Tuesday but I couldn’t help it, I had to come to school to meet with the staff in order to visit the parents and commiserate with them on their loss.
“We all cried bitterly but you know tears cannot bring back the dead, but we all pray that God grant the family the fortitude to bear the loss”, she added.
Also speaking to this medium, class teacher of the deceased, Mallam Abdulrahman Assayouti expressed sadness at the demise of his student.
“What happened is saddening. The incident happened after school hours.
“I’m still in shock because I saw him Monday morning, in fact I remember that I spoke to him at around 10am on the fateful day, and since they’re done with their exams, they were free to play around within school premises.
“Teachers were very busy that day because we were giving the JSS 3 students clearance for their Junior school examinations, so we were not too particular about the rest of the students.”
He described Anas as an amiable boy who had cordial relationship with everyone.
Narrating how he died, Assoyouti said the deceased had gone to also Ajegunle River, in Jooro area, about 40 minutes walk from the school, to swim with his friends when the incident happened.
“It was learnt that some of them went to the stream, about six in number but the only identifiable one amongst them is our student, the late Anas, who was left drowning after the rest of them took to their heels.
“His guardian had started searching for him when he failed to return home at the time he should, when news filtered to her that a schoolboy had drowned in Ajegunle River. And, sadly it turned out to be Anas.”
All efforts to speak to the distraught guardian proved abortive as she was still in shock over the incident.