Deeper Life School officials, students plead not guilty | EduCeleb
EduCeleb
7th January 2021
Five officials of the Deeper Life High School, Uyo, on Thursday pleaded not guilty to the charges brought against them over the alleged sexual abuse of the 11-year-old student of the school.
Two SS1 students of the school, both of them 13 years old, were also arraigned in the same court. The two also pleaded not guilty.
The officials are Joseph Nseabasi, Akpan Johnson, Egor Wilson, Joseph Ikenna, and Ndidi Solomon, the suspended principal of the school.
They were arraigned in a magistrate court in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, accused of conspiring to commit felony through “indecent treatment of boys under fourteen and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 556 of the Criminal Code, Cap. 38 Vol. 2 Laws of Akwa Ibom State of Nigeria 2000”.
The two students, according to the charges against them, are accused of committing “an act of gross indecency” by inserting their finger into the anus of the victim, a fellow student of the school.
Their action is said to be an offence punishable under Section 218(1) of the Criminal Code, Cap. 38 Vol. 2 Laws of Akwa Ibom State of Nigeria 2000.
The accused persons were granted bail and the case adjourned to January 20 for hearing.
Allegations
The victim’s mother, Deborah Archibong, said the two senior students of the Deeper Life High School sexually abused her son when the school authorities switched him from his dormitory to another dormitory filled with senior students.
“They will remove his boxer and push their legs and hands into his anus,” Mrs Archibong said in a video which has gone viral on Facebook and Twitter.
“Look at a child I sent to school, he came back with a broken anus,” she added.
Mrs Archibong said her son was frequently starved and beaten up by the senior students.
The Deeper Life High School is owned by a Pentecostal church, The Deeper Christian Life Ministry.