In her classic, 1986 hit, “Greatest Love of All”, let legendary singer, Whitney Houston wrote that, “I believe the children are our future; Teach them well and let them lead the way; Show them all the beauty they possess inside; Give them a sense of pride to make it easier; Let the children’s laughter remind us how we used to be…”
Are the children of Nigeria really seen to be the future? If they are, what kind of future are we creating for them? These questions are necessary especially given the fact that the statistics as it relates to the Nigerian child is very grim.
Governor Babagana Zulum said recently that more than 100,000 indigenes of Borno State have been killed in the 12-year-old insurgency in the Northeast. Many of those killed were children. Many children are orphaned by the insurgency. There are even thousands of children held forcefully by the insurgents, these children are used as suicide bombers and cannon fodder. It is common knowledge that Boko Haram forcefully conscripts children into its fighting forces. This much was confirmed by the governor who disclosed that young children had been trained to handle AK-47.
United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF and European Union, EU recently said no fewer than 2,295 teachers have lost their lives while 1,400 schools were destroyed in North-East Nigeria since 2009 as a result of insurgency. This was contained in a joint statement made available to newsmen by the organization! “Children in Borno State are among the most conflict-affected and educationally disadvantaged in the world. Since 2009, over 1,400 schools have been destroyed and 2,295 teachers killed across the North-East in protracted conflict. “Attacks by armed groups on education and school facilities, the influx of internally displaced families into metropolitan cities and population growth have also stretched existing school structures to the limit, creating challenges of access, retention, and school completion.”
Education is a fundamental human right and investing in people is the most important investment any government could make for its citizens. Getting a number of out-of-school children back to school, and especially keeping the girls longer in school will contribute to better parenthood and reduce the effects of poverty that fuels protracted insurgency. For conflict-affected children and their families, education is a lifeline out of generational poverty.
Education is not only in dire straits in the insurgency ravaged North East and the banditry infested North West. In many parts of the country children are receiving education under dilapidated classrooms, under the trees, overcrowded classrooms, flooded classrooms, low teachers’ morale and poor funding for the education sector.
In a report the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, and the World Health Organisation, WHO, had ranked Nigeria first in Africa and second in the world among countries with the worst malnutrition cases.
According to the UNICEF report published in 2021 entitled: “Fed to
Fail? The Crisis of Children’s Diets in Early Life”, Nigeria was placed second in the global malnutrition burden with 17 million undernourished children. In the report, one in three children in the country is diminutive and one in 10 children is wasted, setting the country off-track to achieving the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 – “Zero Hunger” by 2030.
“From the 2018 National Demography Health Survey, NDHS, 37 per cent of Nigerian children aged between 0 to 59 months are stunted, seven per cent are wasted (thin for their height); 22 per cent are underweight (thin for their age), and two per cent are overweight (heavy for their height).
“According to the NDHS, South-West has less than seven per cent (6.8) of Global Acute malnutrition and moving up North, it is direr with North-West showcasing 57 per cent in stunting.
“Only the South-East fared a little low with 18 per cent of children stunted,” the report said.
The worsening security challenges, especially in the northern part of the country have led to the rising pangs of malnutrition among Nigerian children. As at January 2022, eleven states that are yet to domesticate the Child Rights Act of 2003, which was enacted by the federal government to reduce child abuse in the country, have been told to do so without further delay.
The president of the Pediatrician Association of Nigeria (PAN), Dr. Edward Alikor, said that these states include Kebbi, Kano, Katsina, Sokoto, Jigawa, Zamfara, Bauchi, Yobe, Gombe, Borno and Adamawa.
Alikor disclosed this at the 52nd/53rd Annual General Meeting/ Scientific Conference tagged, PANCONF UYO 2022. The theme of the conference was; “Child Abuse: An Escalating Menace in Nigeria.”
He said that the inability of the 11 states, all in the northern part of the country, to domesticate the child rights act was a serious issue to the pediatrician association. Alikor explained that domestication of the law would increase child protection and reduce the chances of child abuse in the country. According to him, six out of every 10 Nigerian children have suffered one form of abuse or the other, which called for serious concern among stakeholders. He said: “Nigeria is notorious in child abuse. It is estimated that six out of
10 children in this country have suffered one form of abuse or the
other; for boys, 10 per cent and for girls, 25 per cent. So, you can
see is a major issue. “All of the 11 states are in the northern part of the country, help us advocate for domestication of the law and its execution. It is the relevance of what we have gathered to discuss in Uyo,” Alikor said.
And as the economy of the country keeps deteriorating parents are finding it very difficult to meet their obligations to their children.
Many could not provide food on the table or afford school fees, leaving millions of Nigerian children out of school. Most Nigerians are no longer able to afford major expenditure on discretionary or non-essential goods and services as inflation has continued to take its toll on their purchasing power, a new report by Fitch Solutions has shown. Tagged: “Nigeria 2022 Consumer Outlook: Elevated Inflation Will Weigh On Consumer Spending,” the leading global market and credit intelligence firm made a forecast that real household spending will grow by 3.6 per cent in 2022, a deceleration from the estimated 3.7 per cent growth in 2021. The consumer price index, which measures the rate of increase in the price of goods and services, jumped amid increases recorded in food and energy prices.
Meanwhile, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) pegged the country’s urban inflation rate for April 2022 at 17.35 per cent (year-on-year) while the rural inflation rate was 16.32 per cent.
Nigerians have continued to complain as the value of the naira continues to depreciate and the cost of essential goods and services keep skyrocketing. In health sector, malaria is responsible for the death of more than 300,000 children under the age of five in Nigeria annually, the Malaria Action Programme for States (MAPS) has said. The disease was also responsible for 11 per cent of maternal deaths in the country.
Malaria is the major cause of morbidity and mortality which has direct effect on the growing cases of poverty, low productivity and low school attendance in the country. The mosquito-borne illness causes over 100 million clinical cases and is responsible for nearly 300,000 deaths in children under the age of five and 11 per cent of maternal mortality cases annually.
What can we do to redeem the situation for the sake of our children? We must begin to realize that the actions we take not only affect the children today, it also has consequences for their future. We must therefore be deliberate in the effort to end the wars in the country, be it couched as insurgency, banditry or violent separatism. And the government must do everything to bring the wars to an end so that the children can return to schools in peace, while spending in the education sector must be increased in line with the growing population of the Nigerian children. There is need to declare state of emergency on schools’ infrastructure. This requires concerted efforts by the present administration and the next administration to confront the situation squarely.
All the states that are yet to domesticate child rights act should be made to do so by the federal government to guarantee the safety and rights of our children. And let us stop beating the drums of war for the sake of the children.
MAY NIGERIA REBOUND
