PRESS RELEASE ON THE FALSE, MALICIOUS PUBLICATION AGAINST THE HAUSA COMMUNITY AND LAGOOZ SCHOOLS

The attention of the Management of the Lagooz Schools has been drawn to the malicious, outrageous and demeaning publication in the ‘Punch Newspaper’ of Wednesday, 20^th July, 2016 under the caption ‘Teenager attack school , Beat Principal Steal N1.5Million”.

For record purposes, teenagers never attacked Lagooz schools and as such no property was damaged and the principal of the school was not beaten as reported in the Punch Newspaper, and no single money got missing. Ever since that report hit the headline, we have been inundated with several calls from the parents and well wishers of the school to express their concerns about the safety of their children with threats to withdraw their wards. Our question therefore is, how did the reporter come about such untrue information about the incident? It is even more shocking that the journalist Mr. Samson Folarin, a journalist with the Punch Newspaper who later visited the school, inspected the school compound and had interview with Mr. Olumuyiwa Ige and the school proprietor who gave firsthand report of what transpired that day, unfortunately and maliciously wrote and presented a false and exaggerated facts of what took place on that fateful day. By his actions we emphatically state that he created ethnic sentiment into the matter.

It is worthy of note to state that in the last five years the management of Lagooz schools has in their Corporate and Social Responsibility conducted Ramadan Tafsir (Islamic lecture and provision of food items during Ramadan).
Significantly, we also wish to state that the Hausa community in Agege and environs have been friendly, accommodating and peace loving. An there has been a lot of collaborative efforts between the community and Lagooz Schools, so there is no reason whatsoever for the Hausa community to attack the school.

With all sense of modesty, it is pertinent to note, Lagooz Schools has in place a Scholarship Scheme from which Hausa community has benefitted tremenduously.

We hereby present to you the events as it unfolded that day.

The  yearly valedictory service of the Lagooz schools for the year 2016 was held as usual and was well attended. The programme went on smoothly until the end, after which one unfortunate and minor incident occurred at the parking lot outside the school premises. It involved two young well wishers of the graduating students. One of them unintentionally, used his car to hit the other, and in the process of trying to douse the tension generated by the incident and settle the aggrieved persons,  one of the teachers of the school, Mr. John, was accidentally hit on the right eye. When the school management noticed that it could not control the situation anymore, they had to involve the police at Elere Police station to assist in quelling the situation. The police arrived and performed their legitimate duty creditable and arrested some culprits who took advantage of the situation.

However, the parents of the detained persons visited the school to plead on behalf of them anf an understanding was eventually reached. The culprits were later released by the police.

Feeling remorseful, the culprits had come to the school to apologise to the management and staff for the embarrassment they caused outside the school premises through their behavior and the matter was laid to rest.

But the management of the school was, however, taken aback when confronted with a News headline Punch Newspaper Wednesday 20^th July 2016 “Teenagers attack school, Beat Principal, Steal N1.5 Million”.

Upon further investigation on the true account of what transpired. The member of the press has come to conduct a facility inspection on the premises and have been able to deduce the actual events of the day.

The management of the Lagooz Schools hereby through this medium distance herself from the Punch Newspaper publication of the 20^th July, 2016 as reported by Mr. Samson Folarin. For the avoidance of doubt Lagooz Schools is receptive to all Nigerians and foreigners irrespective of colour, race, religion, ethnicity and status.

Even the IPO of the case Inspector Sunday of Area G Police at Ogba too was surprised when he read the malicious report in the Punch Newspaper of Wednesday, 20^th July, 2016. Equally surprised was the S.O. Pius Olah of Elere Police Station.

In the light of this malicious and damaging story about the unfortunate minor incident during the Lagooz Schools valedictory service, this press statement has become imperative to give the true account of the incident with a view to preventing such unnecessary sensation in the report of events by the media.

Thank you,

Chief Yomi Otubela (FCMA)

Proprietor, Lagooz Schools