By Abass Jalloh
18-year-old Micford Walker-Johnson has been reported to have allegedly taken his own life for scoring a poor grade in Mathematics in the recently published result of the West African Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
He was reported to have hanged himself on Sunday with his belt over a bathtub in the restroom at their Berwick Street residence in Freetown where he resided with his mother and stepfather.
Both the mother and stepfather whom Mickford lived with until his death would not speak to Politico on the issue but the biological father, Clifford Walker, popularly known as DJ Cliff, said he still could not figure out what could have led the young man to commit such an act, noting that he was assured that his son was in good hands in the care of his mother and stepfather.
He went on to note that he and the other family members would always do their best to give him whatever he needed.
He said his son took his own life because he thought he had failed his Maths exam. Micford misunderstood everything when he retrieved the result, his father said. “It was the wrong result my son retrieved. His real result is with his mother, he scored C4 in Maths. He decided to hang himself with his belt,” he explained.
He went on to note that his boy was raised in a Christian home that believes that taking one’s life is sinful no matter what he was going through in life.
“When I took the GCE examination, I didn’t get good grades but I knew that there were other potentials in me that I could do and I discovered that. It was later that I went to college but I have been able to care for myself and family. University education is not the only way out,” he said.
Walker said he was told that the boy had told his girlfriend in a WhatsApp conversation that he couldn’t bear the pain of not making it through the WASSCE again.
However, the said girlfriend could not be reached.
Sergeant Christiana Jackson, the Supervising Officer at the CID West End Police Station, told Politico that it was one Victoria Johnson, aunty of the decease who reported to the police at Adelaide Street at around 11:45pm on Sunday November 15, 2020.
It is yet to be confirmed whether it was clearly a suicide or not since the postmortem examination was yet to be conducted. “Investigation is still ongoing. I can’t confirm until the postmortem result is out, which will be done by the Doctor,” she said.
She went on to say that the said aunt and the police went to the scene, but they didn’t meet the deceased and that he had been taken away. “He was taken to the hospital at Connaught where he was alleged that he died on the way,” she said.
Micford Walker, who was residing at the same address, was a student of Prince of Wales School, but he recently attended Virtues International Academy where he took his second WASSCE.
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