Wicked father chops off child’s leg

DELE OGUNYEMI, Ibadan



It is incredible, yet it is true. A father has willfully dismembered one of the two legs of his own daughter.

And whilst the whole episode lasted, the father apparently took delight in the show of shame. It all happened at Gbelekale area of Ibadan, where a 50-year-old retired soldier, Mr. Dauda Tiamiyu allegedly tied both the legs and hands of his eight-year-old daughter with unsterilized cable wire as punishment for a minor offence.


The little girl, Barakat, was reportedly locked up in an inner room of the living apartment for several days, with the wire tightly tied on her leg, while she hardly had anything to eat or drink whilst the punishment lasted.


Mr. Tiamiyu was said to be punishing his daughter for begging for food and money from neighbours. And when it became exactly 10 days that Barakat had been kept in seclusion, all along with the wire still tightly tied upon her to prevent escape, "the leg dropped off the body."

Tiamiyu, who has already been arrested by the police in the Oyo state capital and kept in their custody for the inhuman act of brutality, was a guest of the juvenile court sitting in Ibadan, yesterday, where a case of child abuse was preferred against him.


It took the joint efforts of some Ibadan-based non-governmental organizations, notably the Child Growth Concern Initiative (CGCI); Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA); Justice Development and Peace Commission (JDPC) and Movement Against Defilement (M.A.D.) to get Tiamiyu prosecuted over his inhuman act.


The groups had taken up Barakat’s ordeal when an alarm was raised over the issue on January 28 this year when Barakat’s biological mother, Madam Akande, who has been divorced from Dauda Tiamiyu since 2004, intimated the human rights organisations of the matter.


Barakat’s mother, who stated that she and Tiamiyu were separated following unbearable ill-treatment, had told the non-governmental organisations that she had to give the father custody of the daughter because of threat from the father that the child must not die under her care.


But Tiamiyu had allegedly tied the hands and legs of his eight-year old daughter, Barakat, with wire cables as a punishment for begging for food and money from neighbours. The punishment subsequently led to the amputation of the girl’s left leg, which dropped off at a traditional orthopaedic hospital located at Oje, in Ibadan, where she was rushed when the father later realized the extent of the damage he had inflicted on the daughter.


Tiamiyu allegedly told the traditional hospital management that his daughter was hit by a motor cyclist. He also reportedly abandoned the girl in the hospital since November 2008.


Barakat had insisted during a press briefing in the Oyo state capital, jointly organised by the concerned non-governmental organisations that her father actually terrorised her by tying up her legs and hands with cable wire as a punishment for begging the neighbours for food.


However, when the case came up for trial at the juvenile court, Ibadan, yesterday, Tiamiyu denied the allegation, saying that Barakat’s dismembered leg came about as a result of certain skin infections that inflicted her some time last year.


According to Tiamiyu, by the time he observed that Barakat’s leg had swollen, he took her to the traditional orthopaedic hospital and made initial deposit of N5, 000, out of the N60, 000 medical bill charged.


Tiamiyu had nothing else to tell the court on his daughter’s bodily injuries.


Barakat’s mother, Mariam, was furious as she refuted Tiamiyu’s claim, insisting that her daughter’s leg was actually dismembered because of the ill treatment Mr. Tiamiyu meted out on the little girl.


She told the court that she only got to know about Barakat’s ordeal last August through a friend, adding that she had since then moved down to Ibadan to be able to take motherly care of her.


When questioned on the circumstances surrounding her separation from Barakat’s father in 2004, Mariam revealed that she had to run for dear life when it became apparent that Tiamiyu might kill her as a result of his high handedness.


Her words: "Your Lordship, Barakat’s father beat me till I once lost a pregnancy. It was after this I had Barakat for him. I later realized that I had married a tiger. I had Barakat for him as an underage and in 2004 when I separated from him; I initially took Barakat along with me to Lagos, where I relocated to. But I had to return Barakat when she was fast falling sick here and then."

The trial magistrate, Mrs. A. B. Bolaji, while adjourning further hearing on the matter till February 27 this year, directed that Tiamiyu be further remanded in police custody till then.


The magistrate also directed the medical director of the traditional orthopaedic hospital, where Barakat was initially admitted and treated, to attend the next hearing so as to clarify certain issues bothering on when Barakat was admitted as well as the condition under which she was admitted to that hospital.

http://odili.net/news/source/2009/feb/7/801.html

wonders shall never end.
How do legs drop off a body or are these people exagerrating?
The father should be castrated though
why should anyone treat a little girl this way?
If he'd been feeding her well,she wouldn't be begging food from neighbors.
This is just so sad.

Then some carry it to America.

A college professor faces sentencing Nov. 14 in Hinds County Circuit Court after pleading guilty to felony child abuse, court records show. Festus Oguhebe, a Byram resident and Alcorn State University business professor, initially faced five counts of child abuse stemming from a March 2005 arrest. He is the father of six young children.

Prosecutors could not be reached to explain what happened to the other charges.
On Tuesday, Alcorn spokesman Christopher Cason said university officials are awaiting results of the sentencing before considering Oguhebe's job status after learning of his plea. ASU employees are expected to be of "good moral character," he said. When reached at his home, Oguhebe told a Clarion-Ledger reporter to "stop doing stories - this is hurting my family and six children. Stop calling us and disturbing us." He would not comment further.
However, Oguhebe's attorney, Robert Shuler Smith of Jackson, said his client pleaded no contest to one count of child abuse Oct. 17. The other charge, he said, was not prosecuted. Smith said he wants the professor to receive probation and keep his job. "We believe this was an isolated incident," Smith said.

A native of Nigeria, Oguhebe was accused of abusing his 11-year-old son by "placing him in a bathtub, then putting hot pepper juice in his eyes, on his penis and buttocks; and also by tying his hands behind his back and covering his body with ants," according to court records. The professor also was accused of abusing his son by "whipping and striking the child in such a manner as to cause serious bodily injury," according to records filed by Hinds Assistant District Attorney Jacqueline Purnell.

Oguhebe's arrest in March 2005 marked the second time he had been charged with child abuse. In February 2005, he was charged with one count of felony child abuse, according to Hinds County records. He bonded out on that charge.  The children are now living in "good care" in the metro Jackson area with other family members, said Henry Glaze, commander of the juvenile and child protection divisions at the Hinds County Sheriff's Department.

"I'm pleased ,  he is not causing his children to go through the trauma of a trial," Glaze said.

Oguhebe punished his children for things such as incomplete schoolwork and attempting to steal food in their own home during forced fasts, according to the affidavits filed in Hinds County Court.

It was a case of "good intentions (to discipline his children) that went somewhat bad," Smith said.

Smith said he hopes to introduce evidence from a sociologist at the sentencing phase about disciplinary actions in other cultures. Nearly 1,000 child-abuse cases are investigated every year by local law enforcement agencies and the Mississippi Department of Human Services, Glaze said. There were 16,723 investigations of child-abuse cases in Mississippi in 2005, said DHS spokeswoman Julia Bryan.

Prof Oguhebe was later sentenced to many years in prison

Now this is coming from a deranged individual, Festus Oguhebe, who is an Associate Professor of Business at the Alcorn State University in Port Gibson, Mississippi.  Oguhebe, who is Igbo and hails from the Delta State area of Nigeria, graduated from Northwestern Oklahoma State University with a B.S., an M.B.A. from Mankator State University, and a D.B.A. from Mississippi State University.  He started teaching at Alcorn State University from 1992.  A restaurant that he operated, which served African food, burnt down about three years ago.  He and his family had lived upstairs but used the downstairs for the restaurant.  There is an empty space where the building used to stand.

In 1993, Oguhebe wrote a book, titled “A Revelation of Valentine Love: How to Find the Right Spouse,” which obviously led him to return to Nigeria and get an allegedly very beautiful woman as wife.    But it didn’t stop his maltreatment of the woman, who he refused to allow to go to school.  In the last few years, Oguhebe has been dabbling as a preacher and some people refer to him as a “Rev.”

http://www.chatafrikarticles.com/articles/140/1/OGUHEBES-SADISM-AND-AFRICAN-CULTURE/Page1.html

Na wa oh. Poor children

Mary was found by a British charity worker and today lives at a refuge in Akwa Ibom province with 150 other children who have been branded witches, blamed for all their family's woes, and abandoned. Before being pushed out of their homes many were beaten or slashed with knives, thrown onto fires, or had acid poured over them as a punishment or in an attempt to make them "confess" to being possessed. In one horrific case, a young girl called Uma had a three-inch nail driven into her skull.

Yet Mary and the others at the shelter are the lucky ones for they, at least, are alive. Many of those branded "child-witches" are murdered - hacked to death with machetes, poisoned, drowned, or buried alive in an attempt to drive Satan out of their soul.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/nigeria/3407882/Child-witches-of-Nigeria-seek-refuge.html

KANO, 7 July 2008 (IRIN) - The trafficking of girls from villages to cities in Nigeria is increasing and the state is powerless to stop the trade, officials told IRIN.

“The business of recruiting teenage girls as domestic help in rich and middle-class homes is booming despite our efforts to put a stop to it”, Bello Ahmed, head of the Kano office of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons (NAPTIP), told IRIN.

Girls aged 12-17 are regularly trafficked from villages and brought to the city to work as maids for an average monthly wage of 1,500 naira (US$13) which they usually send back to their parents who are caring for several of their siblings, according to Ahmed.

“Apart from being denied access to education, these girls are in many cases raped and beaten by their employers and this is why we keep a dormitory to rehabilitate them”, Ahmed said.

“Bringing in girls from the villages to the city to work as house helps continues unabated. In fact it is on the rise”, agreed Mairo Bello, head of Adolescent Health Information Project, a Kano-based non-governmental organisation (NGO).

As well as poverty, trafficking in girls and women is driven by the extreme income inequality which exists in Nigeria, and gender inequality. The problem is prevalent all around the country.

The dangers

Saudatu Halilu, a 16 year-old girl who moved to Kano from a rural village to work as a maid, has been a victim of the trade’s dangers.

Saudatu was brought to Kano from Nassarawa State in central Nigeria 10 months ago to work as a domestic help, but she said her master forced her into sleeping with him and threatened to kill her if she told anyone.

“I was too scared to tell my mistress or anyone what happened for fear of what my master would do to me and I did not realise I was pregnant until a medical check after I began to show some signs which attracted the attention of my mistress”, Halilu told AFP.


Ruth, 13, doing her homework. From the age of five to nine she was denied the right to go to school and had to work selling water at a market in Gabon, after having been trafficked from Nigeria
Poverty

Poverty drives parents into steering their teenage daughters into work as domestic helps, believing the menial jobs would secure better living conditions for their daughters, Ahmed said.

“I had no option but to send Hindu, who is my eldest daughter, to work in the city because we are poor and need money to feed”, said Aisha, a mother of six, who sent her eldest child, 14 year-old Hindu Nasidi, to Kano to earn money. The girl upset her keepers by not washing plates properly and they ground chilli pepper into her vagina as a punishment.

“The money she was paid from the job was very helpful in taking care of her six siblings until the unfortunate incident”, Nasidi said, blaming rising food prices for her decision to send the young girl out to work in the first place.

With Hindu’s job gone the family now ekes out a living from Nasidi’s raffia mat weaving and her husband’s mango and watermelon hawking which do not bring in enough money to buy sufficient food for their six children.

Powerless

Although NAPTIP has managed to stop the practice of teenage girls being ferried in trucks from villages to the cities “like chickens”, Ahmed admitted his agency had failed to stop the trade.

“The more the law enforcement agencies perfect their strategies at stopping the business, the more the perpetrators become more sophisticated in running their trade”, he said.

Lack of legislation to prosecute the traffickers makes NAPTIP unable to take legal action against traffickers even when they are arrested, according to Ahmed.

The Child Rights Act which provides for five year jail terms and US$424 fines for perpetrators of child labour is yet to be endorsed by the northern states’ legislatures because some clauses in it have been found controversial by religious and cultural leaders.

Friction

The Act has been a source of friction between the Nigerian federal government, which has endorsed it, and the northern legislative houses.

“We are disturbed by the trend of using teenage girls as domestic helps which is a form of child labour and we are aware of the provision in the Child Rights Act that deals with that issue”, Abdulaziz Garba Gafasa, speaker of Kano’s parliament, told IRIN.

“However we can’t endorse the Act because of certain clauses that are in conflict with our religious and cultural values; once such grey areas are expunged we will approve it, otherwise we will make by-laws at state level that will deal with the perpetrators of this despicable act.”

Mohammed Aliyu Mashi, who collaborates with the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in fighting child trafficking, rejected the notion that there was no legislation to prosecute child traffickers, saying what was lacking was the political will to enforce the law.

“There is provision in the penal code operating in the north which prescribes five year jail terms to life imprisonment to people convicted of child trafficking and child labour”, Mashi said.

“The claim of lack of legislature is just a ruse; it is an excuse to avoid prosecuting offenders because of lack of political will from officials.”

So many cases of child abuse is being terminated at the police station without adequate follow up, which later results to the suffering of the victim (child) weather through being handicap or thrown out of school for the rest of his life.

A typical example of the above scenario is what happened within Maiduguri, the capital city of Borno State in Bulunkuttu Ward where a father tied down his son to a poll, UnCloth the kid, sprayed kerosine on him and set fire over him before the child was rescued from him by his neighbours. When asked as to what the child did, he simply and arrogantly told his neighbours that the child is refusing to go to school. Is that why such punishment is meted to him?

The child was taken to hospital by the relatives of his wife, who later reported the case to the police station and subsequently the father of the child was arrested and now in custody of the police.


This is just a tip, so many forms of child abuses is happening in Nigeria, though some of the social vices will be related to the government's inability to provide basic social amenities, lack of job opportunity and the falling standard of living within the Nigerian nation.

http://busuguma..com/2008/06/child-abuse-in-nigeria.html

If these people are this wicked to their own own children,what will they do to other people's kids?

the christian ones are mostly 'preacher'
the muslim ones are imam

Wow, things are happening o. It was really nice to read in the first write-up that NGO's came to the rescue. There's still hope in Nigeria.

Child abuse, abuse in general by the strong on the weak has always been seen as normal in our society.

Man and women
Parents and children
Elders and youths
Rich and poor
Militants and civilians

Our respect towards these "strong ones" is so much and so pathetic that they take us for granited.

Pregnant woman, banker sister roast maid with hot iron over N2000





If names are given to influence circumstance or situation, definitely, Happiness has turned out to be a misnomer for a housemaid, who goes by that name.

By her name, she does not deserve what befell her last Monday.
Since last Monday, Happiness Chukwunyere has not known happiness. She is now writhing in anguish and pains in a hospital following a brutal torture by her two female relations over N2,000 said to have missed in the house.
Happiness, 13, lives in Ibadan, Oyo State with a woman, who is a relation of her father.

According to her, she came to live with the woman September last year and was made to repeat Primary Six because she did not come with her testimonial which would lend credence to her being promoted to a new class.

Her parents live at Obigbo, Rivers State.
The woman she is living with saw the need for Happiness to go to Lagos and spend the long vacation if for nothing at least for a change of environment. The holiday trip brought her to Ojo, Lagos where she stays with a sister to her madam in Ibadan. The holiday had been blissful until last Monday.

Missing N2,000
Chibuzor, a banker and her pregnant sister, Chizoba are the two daughters of the woman Happiness is spending her holidays with in Lagos. They live in Shomolu, Lagos.
According to Happiness, the female banker had sent the sum of N58,000 to their mother. After some days, when the need for the money arose, the woman counted the money and found out that what was available was N56,000. She phoned her daughter, the banker who maintained that the money was N58,000. She directed her mother to question Happiness over the missing money because according to her, only Happiness would know about the missing money. The old woman did accordingly and asked Happiness who denied knowledge of the missing money.

Road to torture
According to Happiness, after vouching her innocence, Chibuzor and Chizoba were still not convinced. “They requested their mother to send me to them at Shomolu for me to tell them truth. When I arrived, after quizzing me, I still maintained my innocence; they brought out scissors and cut part of my hair. They stripped me and tied my two hands behind my back and started flogging me with canes”.

According to her, after the two canes got broken into pieces without her admitting knowledge of the missing money, they sent a boy of about eight years old living with them to boil water which they doused her with. “They also used hot electric iron on my buttock, belly and lap.”
After this torture, I fainted. Instead of reviving me with cold water, they poured hot water on me. Chizoba, the one that is pregnant said “she has seen the person to kill today. They later locked me in one of the rooms and used a live wire to cross the door so that I will be electrocuted if I want to escape. Thank God NEPA took the light and never brought it back until I escaped” she narrated.

My miraculous escape
While I was locked up in the room, the little boy living with Chibuzor and Chizoba was sleeping in the sitting room. Because her hands were swollen and lacerated as a result of the cord tied on them and the canning, she could not knock hard on the door instead she was banging the door with her head. When this did not produce an impact, she painfully rolled wrappers on her bruised hands and exerted the pressure of her life on the door. Luckily, the door opened. She ran out to the street half naked. Not knowing where she was as that was her first time of being to Shomolu, she asked one man how she would get to Okokomaiko. The good Nigerian took her to the police station.

Pitiable sight
The degree of injury inflicted on her is beyond description. After three days in the hospital, the swollen hands are yet to return to normal. Every part of the skin is lacerated including the breast and upper part of the pubic region. The impression of hot electric iron is on her left lap, buttocks and her belly.
The two ladies from hell as at Thursday evening were in detention at the Alade Police Station in Shomolu. From Saturday Sun’s findings at the station, there were serious pressures from relations of the ladies who did this evil on the police to release the duo, according to them, so that the lady banker with a new generation bank whose name comes in three letters, with the word ‘Bank’ preceding the three letters would return to her work.
As Saturday Sun visited the station as part of the routine duty of getting to police stations on daily basis to see what is happening, news of this gory incident filtered in and it was necessary to hang around and get the full details without disclosing press identity.


Relations of the lady banker and her pregnant sister were rather more interested in the job of their lady and making efforts that the incident involving the ladies from Mbano in Imo State doesn’t get press attention. It was rather surprising watching all of them gather to pester the police not to allow the ladies get embarrassed as the ‘devil caused the whole thing’.


http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/features/crimewatch/2007/aug/18/crimewatch-18-08-2007-002.htm

If I get a chance to punish a person that does such a thing I will not even want a weapon. I will ask God to give me physical strength so that I can use my bare hands to rip them to pieces. A pregnant witch. You are carrying a child and yet still as wicked as the devil. I just pray that that child will end up okay inspite of the mother's wickedness.