By Jethro Ibileke
The governorship candidate of the Young Progressive Party (YPP) in the 2024 Edo governorship election, Mr Paul Okungbowa, has been sentenced to six months in prison by an Oredo Chief Magistrate’s Court for negligence and insulting a parent.
Okungbowa, the proprietor of Benin-based private school Calvary Crown Academy, was sentenced along with three other teachers, Blessing Osarodion, Egharevba Esosa, and Isioma Nimen, by the Court presided over by Chief Magistrate Caroline Oghuma.
They were charged with negligence and abandonment of two pupils in their care.
Okungbowa was also charged for calling the mother of a pupil a prostitute.
According to the charge sheet, Okugbowa committed the offence on 8 September 2023, at the AIG Zone 5 headquarters in Benin, where he conducted himself in a manner likely to cause a 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.
Chief Magistrate Oghuma, who delivered the judgment on Thursday, however, gave him an option of a N100,000 fine.
For the three teachers work with the Academy and are assigned as the caregivers for the children.
According to their sheet, the teachers failed to carry out their duty on the six-year-old daughter, which led to an injury on her face on 29 September 2021, thereby causing her serious harm.
Salma Aigbudu was said to have sustained an injury in the waiting room of the school during the closing hour without any first aid administered to her by the teachers on duty.
The trio were also charged with abandoning another pupil, Zuri Aigbudu, 2, in January 2022, thereby exposing the pupil to unnecessary danger.
The offences for which they were arraigned contravened Sections 167(2), 412, 270, 412 and 267 of the Criminal Laws of Edo 2022.
Osarodion and Esosa were sentenced to one year or an option of N100,000 fine on each of the two counts concerning negligence, leading to the injury of a six-year-old pupil, Salma Aigbudu.
Nimen was convicted for unlawfully abandoning another pupil, Zuri Aigbudu, 2, and sentenced to three months imprisonment or an option of N50,000.