Controversy trails Florence Omagbemi son’s death in Warri

Florence Omagbemi on Wednesday lost her 15-year-old son, Samson Atamako, a JSS 3 student of Challenge International School, Kolokolo, in Warri, Delta State, to the cold hands of death. Samson’s death comes six months after the Super Falcons of Nigeria’s head coach, lost her father.

Samson and a classmate, Darlington Taire, were said to have drowned in a swimming pool at a hotel in Effurun, Delta State, where they had gone for an after exams party shortly after they completed their JSS 3 examination.

The media officer for the Nigeria U-23 team, Timi Ebikagboro, had in a Facebook post on Wednesday asked Nigerians to pray for the 42-year-old. According to the media officer, Samson and other JSS 3 students of the school had followed a teacher to Golden Tulip along PTI junction, Effurun for ‘an after exam party’”.

According to the investigating officer handling the case at the Ebrumede police station, IPO Lucky, investigations are ongoing and the appropriate authorities would make a statement on the matter.

Omagbemi in a chat with The Guardian from her base in the United States of America yesterday said: “Nobody in my family was aware of such arrangement between the school and my son. The lifeless body of my son and his friend were thrown into the hotel swimming pool with bruises all over their body. Somebody must have killed them.

“I was told that the school sent the students to different schools for the JSS 3 examination without the knowledge of their parents or guardians. While the examination was going on, one of their teachers was said to have asked the students to contribute N500 each for the purpose of the celebration in a hotel. As I said, nobody in my family was aware of such plan. Now, the teacher is nowhere to be found, and the policemen at Ebrumede Police Station are not doing anything to bring the killers of my son to book. I am in great pains right now.”

Omagbemi, who led the Falcons to the 10th AFCON title last December, beating their host, Cameroun, said she took the deceased as her son. “I took him as my son because the mother, who is my elder sister, died when Samson was very young. He did not know any other person except me as his mother. I want the police authority in Nigeria to help me fish out the killers of my son.”