The BBC wrote:

“Last year he feared he may be taken to Nigeria and forced to marry against his will, his solicitors said, and a Forced Marriage Protection Order was issued on 8 July.”

Now, I may be wrong in this case, but this is not the usual practice with parents of 17 year old boys in Nigeria.

As a Nigerian, and knowing of so many cases of parents sending their children home from the West because of the bad behaviours they pick up from the societies there, I am frightened as I realise that the laws in the UK may have found a way to infiltrate how African parents raise their children in the UK.

What the Press Association wrote sounded more like the truth, but read how they demonized what is otherwise considered, in our societies, ‘for the benefit of the child’:

“Mrs Justice Macur, who sentenced Mrs Erhire for her contempt of court, said that information had been received from Edirin that he had been "forced or subjected to procedures which were meant to exorcise him from his disobedience to the will of his parents and to remove him from what they regarded to be unsatisfactory friendships".”

Why use words like ‘exorcise’? This I guess was their way of associating this case with those of the cases of exorcism of children suspected of witchcraft.

While I am all for advocating the rights of every individual, I think it is unhealthy where laws interfere with the way we bring up our children.

As a Nigerian observer of this case, I interpret it as the normal situation of

1. child behaving badly
2. parents send child back to Nigeria to learn the Nigerian way of life and respect for your parents
3. child looking for any means necessary to stop this
4. court takes drastic action because the child’s right was more important that the parenting tactics of his parents.

Mrs Erhire was committed to Holloway Prison for eight months.