Sir Apollo Kaggwa school on the spot over kid’s death

Police detectives yesterday returned to Sir Apollo Kaggwa Primary School Nakasero to record witness statements and reconstruct an accident that last Friday claimed the life of a five-year-old child.

Imran Ssentamu, a pupil in Top class B, died at the nearby Case Hospital, also in the city’s upscale Nakasero neighbourhood, where school authorities rushed him after a suspect fall at the school located on Nakasero Road

The deceased’s parents lodged a case with police after receiving conflicting accounts on the events that resulted in the death of the child.
The Nakasero campus is one of several top Sir Apollo Kaggwa schools, and runs both nursery and primary sections.

Parent speaks out
In an interview yesterday, the dead pupil’s father, who requested not to be named, said he believes that the school management’s actions raise suspicion that they are concealing the truth.

“The school management told us that Imran knocked a table and it hit him. But five of seven children, who witnessed the incident, told the detectives yesterday that someone pushed a three-legged table that hit him,” the father said, tears running down his cheek.

One version of the incident is that a child of an unnamed powerful citizen pushed the furniture that knocked five-year-old Ssentamu, resulting in him bleeding profusely.

The other account, one told by the school administration and constituting official line of police inquiry, is that the table collapsed on the child in a freak accident.

Mr Francis Banya, the head teacher at Sir Apollo Kaggwa Primary School Nakasero, yesterday declined to comment on the incident on grounds that “the issue is being handled by the police”.

“You should get details from the police,” he said, “We have no comment”.

Background
The administration did not inform other parents about the incident and on Saturday, hours after Ssentamu lost his life in a fall at the school, organised pre-Primary Four children to stage a music concert and traditional food exhibition on the premises.
The fatal incident had happened on Friday before the mid-morning break time and briefly paralysed activities at the school as teachers, non-teaching staff and curious pupils gathered in shock.

Ssentamu was rushed to Case Hospital, but was pronounced dead on arrival.
The post-mortem report shows he suffered a broken skull and back injuries. The deceased’s father said the boy previously returned home with a facial bruise, and informed them that the injury was inflicted by a bully pupil.

He said he notified the class teacher, and had no reason to believe a repeat attack would happen and take their child’s life.
The father asked not to be named because he is a lower-level government employee and fears reprisal by the “powerful and well-connected” parent of the alleged bully child.

He said accounts offered by children interviewed by police suggests the likelihood that they were coached to structure similar response. The deceased’s mother, who too asked not to be named, said her second child, who is in Middle Class at the same Sir Apollo Kaggwa School branch, told them that his elder brother was pushed and tumbled down the stairs of the storeyed buildings

The toddler said his brother rose up painfully, couldn’t speak and desperately signalled for help.

“He told us that there was no teacher to help [Ssentamu) immediately,” the mother said yesterday, quoting the deceased’s sibling. The traumatised Middle Class child has stopped going to school where tuition per term grosses Shs1.1m.

She said other pupils corroborated the account, but teachers have since gagged them.
“I am ready to forgive whoever did anything to my child. What I want to know is the truth about what happened,” she said.
One pupil, whose name we are concealing because he is a minor, said they saw “a lot of blood” on the floor on the fateful day and became scared to return to school.
They have received no counselling.

Police say
Mr Luke Owoyesigyire, the Kampala Metropolitan Police deputy spokesman, said on Tuesday that they are likely to prefer charges of “rash and negligence” causing death against some school staff.

“We have obtained statements from the school head teacher, pupils and [class] teacher [of Imran Ssentamu]…we arrested the teacher but later released her on police bond,” he said.

Ssentamu had been bullied at school multiple times, according to his parents. One time some tormenter switched his good shoe for an old one. On another occasion, he was injured near the right eye.

Sir Apollo Kaggwa Primary School Nakasero management never notified police of the incident and eventual death of Ssentamu, detectives said, even when the Kampala Central Police Station (CPS) is about half-a-kilometre away.
Police became aware when deceased’s parents lodged a case.

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