School compound proves unsafe, tragic for bright student

By Allan Olingo John Njenga Kamau was to close school last Thursday but the following day, he was laid to rest after a lorry ran over him within the school compound.

After Njenga’s death, his colleagues at Lenana School protested. They demonstrated their anguish along Ngong Road, forcing the school to close early.

According to one of his colleagues, the students were from a hockey practice across the field for the upcoming school championships in Burundi, when a lorry crushed Njenga to death.

“Njenga was taken to the school’s clinic before he was rushed to the nearby Coptic Hospital where he died,” said the student.

Efforts to get a comment from the school’s principal were futile as he said he was on the road driving and would get back to us but never did.

Distraught Njenga’s father, Kamau Mbuthi and family are distraught. The loss of their lastborn son, who was in Form Two, has devasted them.

“I had just come from work when one of my son’s teachers called me at around 9pm. He said my son had been admitted to Coptic Hospital in critical condition and that I should make my way there in the company of someone else,” said Mbuthi. Immediately, Mbuthi says he got his wife and brother-in-law who accompanied him to the hospital. When he got to the casualty department, he saw some teachers but none was willing to come closer. He knew then that all was not well.

Mbuthi was then informed that his son had succumbed to his injuries after the accident at school. Then they asked him the hardest question any parent would want to answer: “Which mortuary would you like your son’s body to be preserved?”

Sought answers He didn’t respond immediately. He sought answers first.

“They told me that a lorry had crushed him on his way from practising hockey in a field at the school. Apparently the lorry had lost control, veered off the road and plunged into John, who was ahead of the group of players,” says Mbuthi.

He says although the school has been supportive, the pain of loss is inexpressive — he lost a child who was bright with a promising future, he says.

“From the time he was young, John was an active student, both in class and in the field. He had a good academic record and I remember a week before he passed away, I was at their school to assist him choose subjects and he said he wanted to be a quantity surveyor computer scientist,” says Mbuthi.

When the students visited Njenga’s family, they were all in a sombre mood with most of them breaking down. The circumstances in which they lost their colleague were too much to bear.

“When the boys were here, they could not talk. They were emotional. It’s like they are wondering who will be next given that greedy individuals insist on the lorries passing through that road,” says Njenga’s mother, Margaret Kamau.

Promising son “I took John to a boarding school in Naivasha in 2005 because I wanted him to have the best environment so that he could excel, which he did. He was a very promising son,” says a devastated mother.

Mbuthi says every parent believes boarding school is a safe haven for their children . . . until the unthinkable happens.

“During the school’s closing days, I used to pick him up despite his protests because I wanted him to be in safe hands,” says the father.

When Njenga informed his father that he wanted to play hockey, Mbuthi advised him to balance the sport with his academic work so that he doesn’t drop in classwork.

Says the grieving mother:“I honestly didn’t expect anything like this, an accident within the school compound, to rob me of my son. If I could be told he died of an illness, then I would live with it.”

She continues: “It’s my prayer that no other parent should go through what we have gone through. The road within the school should be closed so that these children are safe.”

“We are bitter. We had great plans for our son. We had even agreed to take him to parallel degree programme so that he doesn’t lose out waiting for the Joint Admissions Board. Our dream was to see him excel and become something. Now all those dreams are gone,” says Njenga’s mother.