How ‘His Grace Schools’ plotted cover-up despite teacher, consultant admitting 7-yr-old pupil was sexually molested

…school staff beg father of molested pupil in leaked call

New facts have emerged on how a popular academy in Kwara State, His Grace Schools owned by Mr. and Mrs. Adekanye, attempted to cover-up the case of a Yoruba teacher in the school who sexually molested a seven-year-old primary pupil.

The father of the molested minor had told the police how her daughter was allegedly molested by the teacher, identified as Hammed Akorede on February 27, 2020.

According to the father, Hammed took his daughter to a toilet in the school during class hours and locked her up, adding that he removed her pants and molested her with his fingers.

However, after the issue was published by several media, the school management, according to informed sources, agreed to stage a cover-up to save the school’s name.

“When the issue came up, everybody was afraid, not because of the gravity of the incident, but because it is all over the news,” a staffer in the school who declined to be identified told The Informant247. “It was agreed in a meeting that the school should issue a press statement debunking the incident. Suggestions that a Press Conference should be organized also came up but was later dropped.”

“Though some people present at the meeting felt reluctant such action will work out, the top management staff insisted that was the best way to go. An outright denial of the incident,” the source added. “Such cases had happened before but the school always makes sure it doesn’t get out to the media. We had had issues of teachers mercilessly beating up minors, leaving marks on their bodies among others. But it’s usually covered-up.”

It was further learnt that while the school went ahead to issue the Press Statement as agreed, the Press Conference was later dropped.

Releasing the statement on its website and social media pages on March 4, 2020, the school described the sexual molestation case as “malicious and propaganda been perpetrated by some faceless enemies from within and outside” adding that the motive of the report was to “soil” the school’s reputation.

The statement said, “His Grace school is a citadel of Excellence and A Model to other sister firms in the same field of business. As our reputation cannot be dragged in the mold all in the name of trying to score cheap Points. Our Parents, well wishers, visitors and Persons who have had one or two things to do with us in the Past know our antecedents in the area of The Building A child.”

The statement, which said that the management won’t defend “impunities and immoralities”, stressed that at “no point was any of” its “students molested sexually by any teacher in and around the school”.

The school, urging the parents and general public to remain calm, threatened to drag the publishers of the news to court. It also promised to hold a press conference on the issue.

However, contrary to the position of the school in its widely publicised cover-up statement, the class teacher of the molested pupil and school’s ICT consultant confirmed that the incident happened, in two separate audio tapes of phone conversations – made in the evening of the day of the incident – obtained by this medium and certified to be genuine by another independent medium contacted by THE INFORMANT247.

In the audiotapes, the class teacher, Miss Ope (now Mrs.) could be heard begging the father in Yoruba code, adding that the incident had already been reported to the proprietor. The father could be heard insisting that he won’t accept the apology.

“I have been calling you, but you’re ignoring me,” the father told the class teacher over the phone. “Is it because of what you people did to my daughter in your school today? I put my daughter in your custody, this is what you use to repay me. I won’t accept.”

Meanwhile, another official of the school in an eleven minutes, forty-four seconds-long phone call to the father of the molested pupil said, “On behalf of His Grace School, we are very sorry for the incident. I just left the school now, we have been looking for the boy (Hammed Akorede). Even, I have called the referee on his CV (Curriculum Vitae). He too is a lecturer… I am a lecturer too… (Hammed’s referee) is a lecturer at Kingsley (College of Education, Ilorin). It has never happened in the history of the school before. I know as a parent, how one will feel, it is disgusting, although I didn’t know you and you didn’t know me before… we are trying to arrest the boy.”

When the father raised issues that there have been previous cases of abuse in the school stressing that the recent sexual molestation is the height of it, still, the caller told him in the call: “The guy was employed only two weeks ago as a Part-Time teacher after the former Yoruba teacher left. We don’t want the student to be affected that’s why we employed him. We are trying to arrest him already.”

At another point in the phone call, the consultant, who switches between English and Yoruba codes, told the father: “That is why I want to appeal to you to forget the incident, I pray we don’t see such thing like this again.”

The father responded: “What do you want me to do? I’m just coming from the hospital as I’m talking to you… I took my daughter to the hospital for treatment (of injuries sustained from the sexual assault incident).”

In the conversation, the caller refused to identify himself. Even when the father probed him asking if he is one of the owners or a shareholder in the school, he replied in Yoruba code: “Don’t worry, just let’s continue our discussion.”

However, further findings by THE INFORMANT247 through the Phone Number he called with revealed his full identity to be Dr. Ayeni James Kehinde, a facilitator at the Faculty of Science, Ilorin Study Centre of the National Open University of Nigeria. Ayeni who graduated from the University of Ilorin in 2013 and obtained his Master’s and Doctorate degree at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) and Atlantic International University, Hawai respectively between 2012 and 2016 is the founder of Paramount Computers, an Ilorin-based ICT firm that developed and manage His Grace Schools’ official website.

The audiotapes make clear that the seven-year-old pupil, despite the school’s several attempts to cover-up the case, was sexually molested.