Details have emerged of how a Fine Art teacher with Delta Careers College, Ugboroke near Warri, Mr. Godwin Onoyiwa raped and threatened a 9-year old Junior Secondary School, JSS2 student identified simply as Oke on September 23, 2008.
The 9-year old victim while narrating her ordeal in the High Court of Justice, Delta State of Nigeria in the Effurun Judicial Division Holden at Effurun, said two male teachers of her school, Delta Careers College, Messrs Edafe Efe and Godwin Onoyiwa (the convicted rapist) asked her on the fateful day to seat down and wait for her mother to come and pick her from school after the close of academic activities for the day.
According to her, immediately one of the teachers, Edafe Efe and a female friend of hers who accompanied her left the same time, leaving her and the Fine Art teacher alone at the School premises which has boarding facilities, the Fine Art teacher (Godwin Onoyiwa) told her to enter his office and wait for him there. She said she obeyed the instruction and Mr. Godwin Onoyiwa went away for a while and returned later to his office, locked the door and walked close to where she was sitting, only for him to tell her to open her skirt that he wanted to show her something. According to her, when she sought to know what Mr. Onoyiwa (believed to be between 38 and 40 years as at the time of the rape) wanted to show her, he “started to forcefully pull off her clothes and pulled off his boxer”, pushed her on the floor, “used his hand to cover my mouth” and “was forcing his penis inside my body.” She continued, “I tried to bite his hand, I couldn’t because his hand was inside my mouth. When he got up, I saw blood rushing out of my body. He asked me to go to the toilet in the class section to collect mop and bucket to come and clean the place. I was crying and saying that my mum will beat me if she finds out. He said my mum will not find out unless I tell her.”
According to Oke, Mr. Onoyiwa gave her N250 to go and buy something to eat after the rape, threatening that “if she tells anybody, he would beat her and make sure she fails her exams.”
She further told the Court during proceedings that it was after the incident that the other male teacher, Edafe Efe who earlier left the same time with her female friend and “the male boarding students came back and then asked her (Oke) for the phone number of her mother, asking her mother (Madam Grace) to come and collect her.”
Based on the threat from her rapist teacher, she was scared to inform her inquisitive mother what happened until the tissue paper on her pant fell down and mum asked her what happened. She admitted denying the rape incident before her mother.
Fresh Angle gathered that despite all overtures by Oke’s mother and the confirmation of rape by Olive Oghelli, a medical doctor attached to Central Hospital Warri, it took persistent pressure from the police at “A” Division Warri for Oke to own up that she was raped by her Fine Art teacher. This was after she was assured of her safety and protection. This much was affirmed at the court by a female police, Sgt. Doris Osesuwa.
Though Mr. Godwin Onoyiwa denied before the court presided over by Hon. Justice P.O. Onajite-Kuejubola (Mrs.) claiming he resumed work at the school premises at 5.00am on the fateful day and later joined his colleagues to invigilate GCE exams, the Presiding Judge after listening to submissions from both counsel to the plaintiff and the defendant in Suit no. EHC/34C/2012 on Wednesday June 17, 2014 sentenced Mr. Godwin Onoyiwa “to fourteen (14) years imprisonment with hard labour.”
Mother of the victim who is a single parent and prefers to be identified as Grace told Fresh Angle in an exclusive chat in Warri that she was marveled at the level of protection and defence authorities of Delta Careers College, Ugboroke gave the convicted rapist and suspects ritual inclination because her daughter was asked to clean up the sexual mess and put it inside a bucket “which they were initially denied access to “until the police forcefully gained their way into the school premises and found the bucket.”
She further disclosed that while the court proceedings were on, the case file disappeared and later came out on the order of the then Police Commissioner in Delta State after she found her way to the police headquarters at Asaba to personally report the incident to the commissioner.
Madam Grace also alleged that Delta Careers College is planning to appeal the case with a view to upturning the judgment in favour of Mr. Godwin Onoyiwa who is presently cooling off at the Nigerian Prisons, Warri, Delta State.
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