'No foul play in student's death'

Page 19
July 19, 2008



THE committee that investigated circumstances that led to the death of Master Gafaru Abdul Rahman, the final-year Adisadel College student said to have jumped from the top floor of a classroom block, has said that Gafaru was neither pushed nor being compelled to attend church service.
“There was no foul play in the death of the student,” the Chairman of the seven-member committee set up by the Ministry of Education, Science and Sports, Mr Kofi Duah Adonteng, Managing Director of Ghana Post, has said.
Presenting the report of the committee to the sector minister, Prof. Dominic Fobih, yesterday, Mr Dua Adonteng said the senior housemaster of the school who was at the centre of the issue was also not chasing the students to get them to church.
Rather, he said, the housemaster had gone to the building which was not in use to get them (students) out of it after he had heard that some students had gone into it.
He said after hearing reports that some truant students went into the building and defecated into it he ordered that keys to the doors be handed over to him, adding that the housemaster was, therefore, surprised to hear during his usual rounds that some students were in the building on the day of the death of the student.
“The only intention of the housemaster was to get the students out of the building and lock it,” he said, adding that it was when the students spotted him, together with two other masters, that they decided to escape with some jumping from the first floor while others scaled down.
Mr Dua Adonteng said it was in an attempt to scale down from the top floor that Master Gafaru fell from the building, and indicated that the student did not jump or was pushed, since his body would had lay farther away from where he fell.
He said it was a sheer coincidence that the school was having church service on the day that the housemaster and the other masters went to the newly constructed building to get the students out of it, adding that the boys themselves had no problem attending church service.
Prof. Fobih said the ministry was satisfied with the thorough work done by the committee, adding that the ministry would study the report and make the necessary recommendations.
The other members of the committee were the Omanhene of Mamfe Akuapem, Osabarima Nana Ansah Sasraku III, a former head and representative of the Conference of Managers of Education Units (COMEU), Very Rev Dr Richard Foli; and the General Manager of Islamic Schools, Alhaji Arimeyao Shaibu.
The rest were the school’s parent-teacher association (PTA) Chairman, Dr Fiifi Mensah; the Managing Director of Phonix Insurance, Mrs Aeo Nkani; and the Regional Security Co-ordinator, Air Commodore Richard Awuku (retd).