Court Sentences School Proprietor, 3 Teachers To Jail Over Negligence, Insult

An Oredo Chief Magistrate’s Court in Benin, the Edo State capital has sentenced the proprietor of Calvary Crown Academy, Paul Okugbowa and three teachers to six months jail term for negligence and insulting a parent.

The presiding Magistrate, Caroline Oghuma, in the judgment delivered on Thursday however gave the convicts who called the mother of a pupil a prostitute, an option of N100,000 fine.

For their part, the court sentenced the three teachers – Blessing Osarodion, Egharevba Esosa, and Isioma Nimen, for negligence and abandonment of two pupils in their care.

Osarodion and Esosa were sentenced to one year imprisonment or an option of N100,000 fine on each of the two counts bothering on negligence, leading to the injury of a 6-year-old pupil, Salma Aigbudu.

Nimen was convicted for unlawfully abandoning another pupil, a 2-year-old Zuri Aigbudu, and sentenced the teacher to three months imprisonment with an option of N50,000 fine.

The offences for which they were arraigned contravened Sections 167(2), 412, 270, 412 and 267 of the Criminal Laws of Edo 2022.

According to the charge sheet, Okugbowa committed the offence on September 8, 2023 at the AIG Zone 5 headquarters in Benin, where he conducted himself in a manner likely to cause breach of peace.

He was said to have publicly called Mrs Blessing Aigbudu, the mother of the two pupils, a prostitute in the presence of her husband and bystanders to the hearing of the public.

For the teachers, the trio worked with the Academy and assigned as the caregivers for the children.

According to the sheet, the teachers failed to carry out their duty on the six year-old daughter, which led to an injury on her face on September 29, 2021 and causing her a serious harm.

The pupil, Salma Aigbudu was said to have been injured in the waiting room of the school during the closing hour without any first aid administered on her by the teachers on duty.

The trio were also charged for abandoning another pupil, Aigbudu in January 2022, thereby exposing the pupil to unnecessary danger.