Nigeria will on Monday, May 27th 2013 mark with the usual make-
belief and heavily contrived fanfare in governmental quarters, the Children and
Youth Day during which the Nigerian Children are celebrated and in much of the
sermons that will characterize the event, the Children and Youth will be
admonished by government officials, made up essentially of the same old people
that have presided over such events in the last five decades, to be of good
behavior and imbibe the essential leadership qualities of honesty, loyalty to
fatherland, patriotism, fear of God and respect to constituted authority
including their parents and guardians. It must be noted however that majority
of the political leaders today are deficient in those virtues of good
leadership which they will inevitably mouth out tomorrow at the various
children and youth parade in Nigeria.
In some instances, Children in colorful school uniforms will be
conscripted by their school authorities and made to stage carefully
choreographed match passes during which the political administrators of the
various levels of government will take the salute. The private and public
television stations will also host series of Children programs aimed at
entertaining the large number of children that will be in very convivial mood
in the spirit of the Children's Day celebration. These same broadcasting
stations have in all honesty failed to play their social corporate role of
naming and shaming serial abusers of the rights of the Nigerian children.
At the level of state governments, it is expected that the 36
state governors will be in frenzy mood to outshine each other in rendering
some flowery speeches to pour unrestrained encomiums on themselves and their
wives [known in Nigeria as First Ladies] for implementing what they will
cleverly but deceitfully call Children friendly projects and programs. Some of
these so-called First Ladies in the 36 states of the Federation are already
used to running very expensive pet programs some of which claim to be
championing the human rights of the Children of their beloved states but most
people in the states know that these first ladies are only serving their
selfish pecuniary interest by using the influence of their husbands' offices to
extort money hugely from contractors and other dubious business entrepreneurs
who do regular business with these state governments.
One of the states in the South West has even gone to the media
market to run series of paid advertisements inviting the whole nation to attend
one of its kind Children and Youth Day in the state capital of this state that
recently adopted its own flag and anthem. This particular state has invited
over ten dozen traditional rulers to grace this Children Day in what
is seen as another spending spree. An interesting dimension about the
politics going on in this particular South West Nigerian state aforementioned
is that the state governor who does not like being addressed as His Excellency
as other governors would, recently introduced a feeding program for the school
children in the public primary schools. The troubling development about this
feeding program is that already the bureaucrats in this state are already
brandishing some auditing claims which goes to show that several billions of
Naira has already been spent feeding these school children but all of us know
that these bureaucrats will capitalize on this feeding program to feed their
pockets and fleece the state government of the scarce financial resources that
ought to be used to maintain good and qualitative education for these
children. Besides, the state governor will also launch an
information technology program targeted at empowering all the school children
with designer laptop computers each.
While craving your indulgence dear readers to pardon my necessary
digression from the body of the story, I will however state that Nigeria as a
nation and the political leadership over the last fifty or so years since
Nigeria became an independent political entity from Britain, have not
being fair to the Nigerian children because there are so many institutional
inequities that exist in the body politic that severely affect the enjoyment by
the Children of their fundamental human rights and these institutional
inequities will not be addressed or redressed by simply organizing colorful
match passes and parades as will be witnessed on May 27th 2013 to mark the
Children and youth Day.
First, the Nigerian Children who are caught up in areas whereby
terrorism and civil unrests have flared up over the years are usually the worst
affected victims of these violence even as most of these children in these
troubled spots and flashpoints of terrorists attacks like the North East
Nigeria are denied their fundamental right to good and quality education in
addition to the fact that their parents and/or bread winners are put out of job
because of the violence or are even killed in the line of fire thereby exposing
these children to the vagaries of growing up in very harsh and hazardous social
environment. In other parts of the country whereby there is relative peace and
quiet, most of the children are faced with excruciating poverty because most
parents of these children are either out of work or are too poor to enroll
these children in good and qualitative educational institutions, they are
therefore left with the devil's alternative of either hawking bread, pure and
unhygienic water and other variety of wares for their parents or guardians to
make a living or they are compelled by circumstances of hunger to loiter around
in bus stops to beg for alms. Two things normally happen to these category of
children of the poor and the disadvantaged who find themselves on the harsh
streets of most state capitals and the commercial and political capitals of
Lagos and Abuja hawking and roaming about begging for a living. These two
things are either that the children are sexually violated by adult predatory
and serial violent sex offenders or they are indoctrinated/recruited into the
world of crime and criminality and used by adults to perpetuate evil and
other manifestations of crime in the society.
A major institutional inequity in all of these atrocities
committed against the innocent Nigerian children born into poor and
disadvantaged homes is that the state governments and the federal government
have no effective remedy in the event that they suffer such monumental
crimes against humanity such as violent rape and other violations such as
initiating or recruiting them into the World of crime and by so doing
destroy their livelihood forever.
The courts of competent jurisdiction as provided for in section 6
of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria ought to be charged with
the sacred duty of redressing any of such violent sexual violations of the
Nigerian Children but the administration of criminal justice in Nigeria is
afflicted by the evil of compromise, corruption and serious systemic failure
even as the institutions of law enforcement made up essentially of the
Nigerian Police Force have shown total disregard and lack of interest and
patriotic commitment to protect innocent children who fall prey to these sexual
predatory animals who roam the streets of Nigeria as adult members of the
communities whereby these children are born and bred.
The Nigerian Police Force is so notorious for lacking professional
excellence and proficiency in effectively and efficiently prosecuting rapists
of all dimensions because of a number of factors which include corruption,
bribery and the lack of skills to carry through the constitutional job of ensuring
that the Nigerian Children are protected from sex offenders and indeed are
allowed unfettered opportunities to enjoy their fundamental human rights as
enshrined in chapter four of the constitution of Nigeria. The lack of
professionalism and the overwhelming presence of corruption and indiscipline
among the operatives and officers of the Nigerian Police Force have all but
contributed to the high rate of rape of the Nigerian Children by adults
and majority of these cases are either thrown out in the courts for want of
diligent prosecution by the Police or the sex offenders escape with very
lenient punishment that is not commensurate to the gravity of such crime
of primitive sexual violations of the innocent Children. In some
instances, the police close investigation of rape cases if there are accord on
the parts of the Parents and the relations of the sex offenders and the
innocent children are denied justice and left with the scar of being sexually
violated and maimed forever.
But why is there no institution created apart from the notoriously
incompetent Police Service Commission to monitor the performance of the
operatives of the Nigerian Police Force and to ensure that Nigeria establishes
a national crime data bank whereby all sex offenders are captured and clearly
identified in the media to stop them from reoffending especially against the
Nigerian Children? Why is the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and social
development which supervises the Nigerian Children not clearly led by skilled
persons who could monitor closely the performance of police prosecutors that
handle rape cases involving the Nigerian Children? Why is there no Child
welfare centers all around Nigeria and why has the National Human Rights
Commission not yet opened functional desks across the country for the purposes
of monitoring the prosecution of sex offenders accused of violating Nigerian
Children? Why is it that since the year 2003 that the Nigerian Child Rights Act
was promulgated by the National Assembly only a few states across the
federation have domesticated this very strategic body of law that ought to
protect the human rights of the Nigerian Children? Why has the Senator from
Zamfara State [Mr. SANI YERIMA] who blatantly violated relevant
sections of the Child Rights Act by illegally marrying an alleged 13 year old
Egyptian Girl Child not prosecuted even when groups of civil society
organizations including the Human Rights Writers' Association of Nigeria cried
out louder to the Federal Attorney General and the National anti-human
Trafficking Agency [NAPTIP] to initiate the prosecution of this Senator?
Why did the anti-human trafficking agency give this Senator a clean bill
of health even when allegations were widespread that he indeed married an
alleged 13 year old Egyptian girl child? These are some of the deeply
entrenched institutional inequities against the Nigerian Child.
What makes the situation so compelling and sad is that the holder
of the office of the Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development in
today's Nigeria- Mrs. Zainab Maina seems to have resigned to the unfortunate
fate that the Federal Government is too weak to compel the state governments to
domesticate the Nigerian Child Rights Act of 2003.
In The Guardian of Sunday May 26th 2013 the Minister of Women
Affairs and Social Development was quoted as saying that the Nigerian Children
have been denied the full enjoyment of their rights in their states because the
state houses of assembly have failed to pass the Nigerian Child Rights Act even
as she stated that the Child Rights Act was introduced because Nigeria's
national Government felt the need to give a legal backing to the
commitment made by Nigeria under the United Nations convention on the Rights
and welfare of the Nigerian Child. Why have these state governments failed to
domesticate the Child Rights Act to fulfill Nigeria's obligation to the
International humanitarian laws or are these components of the Nigerian
federation not part of the whole federation? Again, since the Federal
Ministry of Women Affairs and social development is so weak to wage advocacy
programs in the 36 states of the Federation to successfully convince and
persuade them to pass the Nigerian Child Rights Law in their respective States
to benefit their children, why do we still waste so much tax payers money
running that office of the Federal Minister of Women Affairs and Social
Development? What is the relevance of this ministry when Nigeria does not have
functional social welfare departments all across the Federation thereby allowing
all criminal syndicates and charlatans to invade the sacred responsibility of
running motherless homes and other child welfare schemes as business
enterprises and most of these private children home owners are now in the
illegal business of turning these homes into babies factories whereby couples
with issues of childlessness can pay huge price for their choice babies? Why do
we sell and buy little babies in this modern age even with the abolition of
slave trade?
Government at both the Federal and State levels have spectacularly
disappointed the Nigerian Children and unfortunately, these government
officials are getting ready to dish out some lies as speeches during these
public events to mark the Children and Youth Day on May 27th 2013 all across Nigeria.
The state Governors that have failed to persuade their state
houses of assembly to pass the state version of the Nigerian Child Rights Act
should ask themselves the soul searching question of why they are deceiving
their people by staging Children and youth Day parade when deep inside their
hearts they hate these Children? To show how hypocritical these state governors
are, one only need to know that their children are all schooling in Europe or
America whereby these nations have long promulgated and are enforcing strict
child rights laws but yet they have failed to give the children of the poor
this opportunity of enjoying their human rights just like their children that
they have taken abroad for the best things that money can buy.
In the North, the state governors sometimes argue on the basis of
religion for not promulgating the Child Rights Act and I ask is any
component part of Nigeria practicing any religion as state religion even
when section 10 prohibits such illegality, absolutely? Why will the Northern
state governors not permit the child rights law that prohibits early marriage
but can not come to terms with the fact that early marriages inflict grave
health problems such as [Virginal deformity] VVF and other severe
diseases that results from early marriages especially given the fact that these
children are given away in marriages to men that are twice older than
their biological fathers and are forced to give birth to babies that they can
barely carry since they themselves are still little children?
In the South East, the children of the poor are all out of school
because the state governors have diverted the Universal Basic Education fund
which ought to be used to provide free, compulsory and quality primary and
junior secondary educational opportunities for the children of the poor. The
rate of boys drop out of school in the South East is a major national
catastrophe which must be institutionally addressed and redressed fundamentally
before we produce a generation of youth that are half baked educationally and
therefore can not drive the process of information technology and
industrialization that will see Nigeria through in an increasingly
competitive World.
Interestingly, Mr. Vijay Mahajan in his intellectually nice
book titled 'Africa Rising', he argued persuasively that in Africa there is a
huge population of the youth who if well groomed can drive the process of
development. His words; " Africa is one of the youngest markets in
the World, with 41 percent of its population under the age of 15, according to
the population reference Bureau's 2007 World Population Data sheet. This can be
compared with 33 percent for India, 28 percent for Brazil, and 20 percent for
China".
But I ask, how can Nigeria benefit from the strength of her large
army of Children when the majority of these children are born into poor homes
whereby they are brought up in such a way that they are denied the educational
opportunities that children of the rich get on a platter of gold? No nation
will make it in our contemporary times if it fails willfully to educate their
people and empower the children with the requisite skills to competently
compete with their peers around the globe. We must make hay while the sun shine
or we will forever regret this institutional inequities that we have criminally
failed to dismantled so our children can have the best things that money
derived from our rich natural resources can afford. Let us stop stealing our
national treasury but invest wisely in the educational and skill empowerment of
our children.
+ Emmanuel Onwubiko is Head, Human Rights
Writers' Association of Nigeria and blogs @www.huriwa.blogspot.com; http://www.huriwa.org/.
27/5/2013
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