Justice Oyindamola Ogala of an Ikeja High Court, has reserved ruling till May 2 to decide on the admissibility of treasury receipts paid for the usage of Agege Stadium where the death of Chrisland School student late Whitney Adeniran was said to have occurred.
The Court’s decision was sequel to the argument and counter arguments following the admissibility of the exhibits identified by the prosecution witness, Mr. Yakubu Jubril, a social worker Ministry of Youth and Social Development.
During today’s proceeding at the continuation of trial of staff and management of Chrisland School, Opebi, the Defence Counsel, Olukayode Enitan, SAN, asked the Prosecution witness to identify what some documents he claimed to be government’s treasury receipts represented.
He stated that the documents were dated 7th November 2018, January 8, 2020, September 26, 2016 and January 9, 2023, for payments for use of Agege Stadium which was provided by Lagos State for the inter house Sports.
The witness identified them as documents from Lagos State Government Youth Sport and Social Development.
At this juncture, the Prosecution Counsel, Dr Babajide Martins, objected that the witness was not the maker of the documents.
But Enitan argued that they were treasury receipts for use of Agege Stadium by Chrisland School.
According to him, the documents were relevant because the Lagos State Government collected payments for the use of the facility.
Other defendants counsel aligned with the third Defence Counsel’s submission.
Particularly, Ajibola Ariba, Counsel to the 5th defendant (Chrisland School) argued that the evidence must be relevant to the issue.
According to him, “The officer of the Lagos State Government identified these documents.”
He mentioned that apart from the Ministry of Education, the Police, Safety Commission, DSVRT, need to know about the incident when talking in terms of safeguarding and child protection.
The witness also admitted before the court that all facilities rendering services to children must report serious occurrence of event.