I really did not know where to post this one. But since I'm a 'political' fan on this board, and have some friends in here, I decided I should share this with you.

Please take some time out and read it. After going through the article, please tell me if it's good for a core Naija man like me to want to spend the rest of my life in the US, or any other country like that.


Nigerian professor jailed in US
By OUR CORRESPONDENT - 22.11.2006

A Nigerian professor based in the United States who used pepper and ants to punish one of his sons is to serve two years in prison for child abuse, despite pleas by two of his children and ex-wife.

Hinds County Circuit Judge, L. Breland Hilburn, on Monday sentenced Professor Festus Oguhebe to five years in prison with three years suspended on his no-contest plea to one count of child abuse.


“I know he went overboard in his punishment, but he loves us. If he is in jail, that would totally mess me up so much,” said 16-year-old Anna Oguhebe, who will graduate from high school in the spring. “I want my dad to be there when I graduate, not in jail.”


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.


Oguhebe was also accused of abusing his son by “whipping and striking the child in such a manner as to cause serious body injury,” according to records filed by Hinds Assistant District Attorney, Jacqueline Purnell.


Hilburn told Oguhebe if the case would have gone to a jury, “it would have been very difficult for a jury not to find you guilty of child abuse.”


Oguhebe, who has six children with his ex-wife, wiped off tears when his children spoke of their love and respect for him, urging Hilburn to spare their father jail time.


“Give him counselling, extensive counselling. That would be better than jail,” said Anna Oguhebe. Anna Oguhebe and her brother, Festus Jr., also a high school senior, said their father might have gone overboard in his punishment, but his discipline and guidance as a father had kept them out of the kind of trouble they see peers getting into.


All six children were in the courtroom, including the child Oguhebe was charged with abusing. The child didn’t testify. Oguhebe said the kind of discipline he inflicted upon his children was a custom in his native land.


Oguhebe’s ex-wife, Mary Oguhebe, said what her former husband did was wrong, but he was no danger to society and didn’t need to be locked up.


“I don’t know how I will control the children if he is in prison,” Mary Oguhebe said. Mary Oguhebe had repeatedly reported abuse of the children by their father to the Hinds County Sheriff’s Department, a department spokesman said.


In February, Oguhebe dropped off one of the children at the University of Mississippi Medical Centre with an older sibling, the spokesman said.


After the child was examined, the Mississippi Department of Human Services contacted the Sheriff’s Department, which began an investigation, according to the Sheriff’s Department.


Oguhebe was arrested in March 2005 on five counts of child abuse. The charges were whittled down to the one. Monday was the first time that Oguhebe had seen his children since his arrest in 2005. His bond had forbidden any contact with them.


While on the witness stand during his sentencing hearing, Oguhebe apologised to his children.

As the old saying goes, you can take the man out of the bush, but you cannot take the bush out of the man.

In Nigerian schools, teachers are allowed to beat students senseless with sticks, belts and whatever comes to hand in the heat of anger.  I have heard of a school where all the students once were forced to lie prostrate in the tropical sun, and then each student in turn was forced to walk down the line of students, and beat the living shit out of all the others before lying back down to receive the same treatment from each and every other student.  Hundreds of students shared that horrendous ordeal.    The "offense" that the student body committed was their failure to point out someone who made a disrespectful comment about the headmaster.

Stories abound of lecherous secondary school teachers who grope the buttocks and tits of female students under the pretext of examining their uniforms, or while brutalizing them with canes.  With that kind of criminal madness widely practiced in Nigerian educational institutions, it is no wonder that the Nigerian lecturer saw nothing wrong in torturing his own son despite the fact that he happened to be resident in the USA where the innocent are legally protected from vicious predators.   That bullying son of a bitch ought to be locked up for 5 to 10 years with good behavior.

My offspring will NEVER attend a Nigerian educational institution because if he or she did and was subjected to the kind of random violence visited on students there, I would be forced to lay ambush for the guilty party and liquefy them in a hail of hot lead from my 44 magnum.

THE ACT OF THE PROFFESOR IS BARBERIC HE NEED TO BE PUNISHED. GOOD FOR HIM

olusola200:

THE ACT OF THE PROFFESOR IS BARBERIC HE NEED TO BE PUNISHED. GOOD FOR HIM

I agree, it is a bit too much

The guy na disgrace to nigeria
Professor my foot

d prof too do sha but spare d rod and spoil d child.

Jakumo:

As the old saying goes, you can take the man out of the bush, but you cannot take the bush out of the man.

friend, take off your rose colored glasses. Its not right, but it happens in just about every country in the world. Within the last 2-3 weeks there have been worse 'hazing' scandals reported in S Korea, Russia and Britain.

And whats with the whole 'Bush man' thing. If Oyinbo wont give you respect does that mean you cant respect yourself. Geez.

Hey Bird, my observation about this man's sadistic conduct relates to the fact that in primary and secondary educational institutions thoughout Nigeria, corporal punishment is condoned and encouraged, to the utter detriment of the victims (students), and usually for the depraved (sexual?) pleasure of those who carry out those assaults under the guise of school "discipline"

That professor, though resident in the United States, evidently still operated under the morally bankrupt mindset that he brought over with him from his Nigerian homeland where he probably would have suffered no legal penalties for the insane attack he perpetrated against his own son.

Yes indeed sir, that Nigerian "professor" is a certified true-blue BUSH MAN who richly deserves the jail-house "education" that will soon be imparted by similarly deranged jailhouse bushmen of American nationality.

Jakumo,

He is about to get his black ass whopped. In prison it is well known that people who mess with children are abused worst of all. If he has any sense, he will go there and be cool. Please don't let him go there, thinking he has to inform the Negros how much smarter he is then them. It will be a massacre, once they find out the high and sedity professor screwed over children.

all i'm suggesting is that there is a fair amount of hubris and condescension in your post. It would be understandable if it were from a westerner (the British are particularly good at it), but you need to realize, wether you like it or not, that this was once considered normal, not only in our society, but many others around the world.

Thankfully, most cultures have unanimously evolved from this type of punishment, Africans no less. But the fact remains that what the 'prof' did was part of our culture at one point. In trying to denigrate him, you only denigtate yourself, because its part of your heritage. There are more matured and informed ways of looking at what this 'prof' did.

As for the jail house education, the 'prof' is about to get another degree

aww i'm so sorry, that is what people call arinfesesi, i wish he didn't move out of nigeria in the first place people have got to start asking for god's guidance before they go anywhere, going to jail in naija is even better than yankee.

"Condescension" is a very appropriate choice of words, Bird, to describe my regard for bullies who victimize the innocent, for they are in fact lower life-forms who do not deserve to breathe the fresh air of freedom, and clearly the judge who sent that "professor" up the river shares that natural sentiment.

Drusilla is right in her statement that such a child abuser will need to leave his arrogant pride outside the minute that cell-block door slams shut, if he has any intention of surviving incarceration, for he will become the target of some pretty intense homicidal loathing right from the get-go.

I know a Nigerian woman who put hot pepper in her daughter's vagina to punish her for messing around with boys.
But she became hotter instead.

This using hot pepper to punish stubborn children is dangerous.

Why should the professor put pepper in the eyes of his child?

Is he a Benin wizard?

I pray the good Lord save this generation of ours from destruction. Everyday, we are inundated with very disturbing information about the lifetyles of youths of today. From illicit sex, to cultism, hard drugs, unwanted pregnancy, HIV and AIDS, all forms of societal ills and the evils that goes with them. Sometimes, in the closet of my study, I ponder how we arrived at this stage in our lifetime.

Is it that we've allowed our sense of judgement, decency and morals to fade away having embraced the practice and traditions of the western world, which clearly negates our culture and traditions?  Or is it our obsession with ''advancement in technology'', lust for wealth and cravings for finite things of this world? The children of today (I'm talking about kids born into the world in the last 10 - 20 years), from my experience are some of the worst set of demoralised kids roaming the surface of the earth. What's even more disturbing is that the parents,who should know better, are accomplices in the evils of the day.

Parents now write exams for their kids in Nigeria. The other day, I read on the Vanguard that some kids who helped their parents to write their exams were nabbed somewhere in Lagos. 

I have experienced some of the things this Prof meted out to his son, from my mother. I'm grateful to her now, and I'll forever remain grateful.  And if you read between the lines, it seems to me that the Profs ''sins'' have been sugar-coated with other stuff - obviously to make it look very bad. I don't quite believe someone of that Profs calibre will do all that's written up there to his son.

In any case, his daughter at least acknowledged that it was his father disciplinary method of bringing up a child that is at the root of her success. Now if she can say that, and be proud of her dad, then I believe that young chap brother of her's must have done something terribly wrong for the dad to treat him like that. No mention was made of what the young boy did though. Probably he took some crack and was nabbed by the dad.

I will not like to spend too much time in the US, if given the chance. I have said it in one of my posts that the present day American lifestyle is one of the worst ever in human history -  and that with facts.

Ono, no matter the transgressions of any child. VIOLENCE BEGETS VIOLENCE, and there is simply NO EXCUSE for the type of assault carried out by this mad professor. That coward should rot in jail. His children will be far better off without such a psycho ruining their lives with his lunatic violence.

birdman,

I don't get you. Slavery used to be a part of American culture.

Therefore according to your logic, it should be "uncondemnable"?

What madness is this you speak of?

Just because something was a part of someone's culture in the past, we can not condemn it?

all i'm suggesting is that there is a fair amount of hubris and condescension  in your post. It would be understandable if it were from a westerner (the British are particularly good at it), but you need to realize, wether you like it or not, that this was once considered normal, not only in our society, but many others around the world.

Well as a prof he should know about modern day living!

Oguhebe said the kind of discipline he inflicted upon his children was a custom in his native land.

what a bully

There is nothing wrong with punishing children in a physical way at times.

There is something terribly wrong with punishing children in a way that is torture - hot pepper sauce in a child's eyes and genitals? My god, that is not normal for anyone anywhere. That child could have been blinded.

@ Jokumo

Stop defending what u dont know? I dont even know where u are now or where u were brought up. Nevertheless, you argument will never change nigeria's inherent culture of discipline.

Remeber that no one is begging u to send ur children to nigerian schools. it may interest you to know that, nigerian university especially are stretched that many students are turned down each year.

i will write better on this later, am busy now

Those Yoruba people sef, BUSH PEOPLE. *hiss*

GOOD FOR THE MAN :LET him rot in jail

You know when I saw the topic I taught the Prof was collecting some Cash from American Undergraduates or was shagging a female or male student

But How can a Professor with all the education do such,
Now I know it is one thing to be educated it is anther to be WISE

Definately there is nothing wrong in correcting your child (With the cane) but extremism like in the case of the professor should be avoided.

EVILSLAYER YORUBA PEOPLE ARE NOT BUSH PEOPLE ( TRIBALISTIC SHITHEAD )

I think public flogging wld av done it.
He is a disgrace2 humanity