Rosemary Oromoni, the mother of Sylvester Oromoni, a Dowen College student whose death in 2021 stirred national outrage over allegations of bullying, has passed away.
According to a family source quoted by The Cable, Mrs Oromoni died in late November due to complications from intermittent blood pressure issues. Her passing comes just over seven months after a Lagos coroner’s court dismissed the family’s case in April 2024.
Oromoni, 12, died on November 30, 2021, under controversial circumstances while attending Dowen College in Lekki, Lagos. His parents accused five male classmates of bullying, physical assault, and administering a toxic substance. Dowen College refuted these claims, insisting the boy’s injuries resulted from a football-related incident.
The initial autopsy suggested Sylvester died from “acute lung injury due to chemical intoxication,” but questions about its methods led to a second autopsy by the Lagos Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP), which concluded the boy died of natural causes.
In April 2024, the coroner ruled that Sylvester’s death was due to sepsis caused by an infection from an ankle injury. Judge Mikhail Kadiri attributed the tragedy to “parental and medical negligence” while absolving Dowen College and the accused students of wrongdoing.
The five accused boys—Favour Benjamin, Michael Kashamu, Edward Begue, Ansel Temile, and Kenneth Inyang—were cleared of all allegations and released from a juvenile home in 2022.
The Oromoni family kept Sylvester’s body in a morgue for over two years, burying him on January 27, 2024, as a form of protest against the court’s findings. They have consistently maintained that key evidence supporting their claims was overlooked during the trial.
