Message from Aisha: The Plight of the African Child? We are All to Blame!

Aisha is one of my brilliant postgraduate students and she is happy to share her response to an earlier blog post. Her message is both inspirational and a call to action and applies across Africa as we count down to 2013 Day of the African Child on the theme: “Eliminating Harmful Social and Cultural Practices Affecting Children: Our Collective Responsibility”. Many thanks Aisha for the wonderful thoughts:

The way I have always seen it is that every Nigerian is accountable for what happens in, and to Nigeria. I am to blame, you are to blame, the ordinary citizen on the street is to blame, and everyone is to blame.

In 1999, I graduated from a public school, the Federal Govt College Ilorin It was one of the best of its times, academics, athletics, infrastructure etc. 5-6yrs later, my parents made my younger brother apply to the Nigerian Turkish College in Abuja (the federal schools were no longer good enough).

In 1999, there was no option for me; it was either ABU Zaria, or ABU Zaria. The question was only whether I would be admitted to study medicine in the prestigious university I had dreamed of all my life, since my father had attended the same university. 6 yrs later, my younger brother was admitted to the Nigerian Turkish Intl University, Abuja. The public universities were no longer good enough. If your parents had the money, they were even less appealing.
How am I to blame? What if I mentored an almajiri, fed him three square meals, and facilitated his entry to orthodox school, alongside his Islamic school, mentored and trained him to acquire a degree, is that not one person off the streets? Knowing that literacy begets literacy, he is likely to send all his children to school, probably mentor one person as he was mentored, and thus a cycle of literacy begins, yet I haven't done it. I have thought about it in theory but I haven't done it, so I am to blame.

How is the ordinary man on the street to blame? Last semester, during a visit to witness firsthand juvenile justice proceedings, one of the offenders, a 10 yr old boy had stolen a laptop, however as the judge asked the father some questions, it became glaring there was NO parental supervision at all. Parents were divorced, child was with the father, and father worked from morning to evening and hung out with friends at night. Child didn't go to school. The father was to blame for not wanting a better life for his child, not making efforts to safeguard the future of his child.

How are professionals to blame? They go on strike for the wrong reasons. Doctors, teachers etc. they go on strike because of five naira, but do not lend their voices to topical issues.

Back to my song, it has to start from one person. We have to brighten our corner and guide someone across the bar.

What if the community came together to fix the school in that picture? They wouldn't lack artisans who could do it voluntarily. They wouldn't lack those who could chip in a kobo or two, for goodness sakes, they could construct a blackboard by themselves; they could construct desks and chairs with their own hands.

I am not even blaming the government now, because Nigeria's problems have far outweighed the capacity of government alone.

I think we as a people can do it, if we are focused, if we don't think of the personal or monetary gains, we can turn the lives of millions of children around.

We usually see community service as Oyinbo-ish, but I think given the right ingredients, we can do it and personally I think it is the long term solution to most of our current problems.

The Plight of the African Child? We are all to blame!!!p

Whom do we blame this time round? What hope for the Future?

In Soweto uprising of 1976, thousands of black school children marched in protest against the poor quality of their education. Many years after "independence" (and we are now "in charge" of our own destiny) has there been any change? The situation has gotten worse, in most cases, for the African child. Shown in the pictures above captured by Punch Newspaper photographer less than  a week ago were school children of Idimu Community Primary School at the heart of a State that brands itself as the "Centre of Excellence" in Nigeria. You could just imagine what would be going on in the non-"Centre of Excellence" States. This represents the fate of many public schools and the sorry state of Africa children in the post-colonial era. Our kids are getting very unfair deal considering the vast amount of resources available to nation states in Africa. Public school system, in most cases, has completely broken down and school pupils right from primary school level have found solace in cultism and other social vices in order to find some meaning to the deplorable condition around them. A few who can afford the prohibitive cost, send their children to private schools. One of my blog readers from the Northern part of Nigeria sent me a thought provoking comment on the pervasive "almajirai" syndrome in the North thus: "The issue of almajirai is a burning one up North, and I think it represents an end, on the continuum of child abuse and neglect. It also highlights the plight of the African child. Any negative thing you can think of, can be found in an almajirai population (poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition, infections, infestations, substance abuse, conduct disorders, reckless sexual behavior etc). These same African Children (almajirai) are available as guns for hire, to perpetrate violence in the society. Our children and future generation are not safe if we don't make the continent a safe and conducive place for all children. Here is my own poser sir, The African Child..What Hope For The Future?"

Her poser captures the urgency of need for a collaborative action to save African children from a perpetual "life sentence" of abuse and neglect through generations. 

Whom do we blame this time round for the worsening state of the Africa child in a rich continent, where our "brothers and sisters" are now in power? 

Whom do we blame for the lack of basic infrastructure for care of children? 

Whom do we blame for the outrageous child mortality rate in Africa? 

Whom do we blame for prevailing malnutrition and failure to thrive in African children? 

Whom do we blame for abysmal standard of education in our public schools? 

Whom do we blame for absence of child protection services? 

Whom do we blame for churning out a damaged generation of child soldiers? 

Whom do we blame this time round? 

I blame myself. 

I'm ashamed by the pitiable state of the African child I see daily. 

We have betrayed our children. 

We can't afford to continue this way. 

It's our Collective Responsibility to make that much needed change in our little corners. 

The time is NOW!

2013 Day of the African Child: Is the Night Over?

As I prepare to give a talk at a forum being organized in commemoration of 2013 Day of the African Child on the theme, “Eliminating Harmful Social and Cultural Practices Affecting Children: Our Collective Responsibility” I could not stop thinking about the precarious state of the African child in the twenty first century. While a few African countries have made some effort at tackling prevalent cultural and social menace bedeviling the African child, most of Africa only pay a lip service to Child Rights. In 2003, Nigeria passed the Child Rights Act to domesticate the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The law, though passed at the federal level, would only be effective if also passed by State Assemblies. It has remained largely an "ink effect" on paper as most the States in Southern part of Nigeria that have passed the law are yet to put up any visible and modern Child Protection System as provided for in the law, while most the Northern States have not even bothered pretending about protecting "Child Rights" as the State Assemblies are yet to consider domesticating any aspects of the Child Rights Act despite pressures from the civil society. The impunity of this posture and the "dark night" it portends of any child in that part of the world, and similar setting, was evident in 2010 when a serving senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Ahmed Yerima, in the same National Assembly that passed the law just some years back, "married" a 13 year old girl! Indeed, the man who was old enough to be the child's grandfather actually "bought" the poor Egyptian child for $100,000 of a dowry! Meanwhile, under the National Child Rights Act, the legal age for marriage is 18 years. And to underscore the despair of the Nigerian child (and African child in general) and how impotent the law could be in protecting him or her against the tyranny of bestial calibres in the garb of culture, religion and inordinate considerations, the "marriage" took place at National Mosque in Abuja, the capital city of Nigeria where the laws of the land should be illuminating every space of the city. The Nigerian State could not rise up to protect one child who represented the face of numerous children wailing in dark recesses in different parts of the country under the bondage of primitive practices which clearly put their lives, potential and future on the line. Female genital mutilation is still occurring unchecked in different parts of Africa and boys are still subjected to primitive and brutal rites of passage in some culture. Child labour, child trafficking and sale of babies are all "booming" with highly placed people involved. The justice system seems ill prepared and apparently uninterested in issues of crimes against children. We have attended to some cases of child sexual assault in which police officers are yet to show any interest in the forensic evidence collected. Meanwhile, if you check out the children of "leaders" in Africa and folks like Ahmed Yerima, their children are most probably schooling in the best of schools abroad or best of private schools within; well catered for and protected. On the other hand, an average public school in Africa is simply a disaster for whatever a school is meant to be. The conditions that necessitated the Soweto Uprising in 1976 are still very much with us in Africa and has gotten worse and more convoluted. The Day is yet to come for the Africa child. The gloomy night overshadows their destiny while government officials, on "special" occasions,  make speeches that are drown by extended squawk of vultures devouring our children. We can't continue this way and we must use the theme of 2013 to dismantle unfounded social, cultural and religious arguments that have so far been used to destroy the future of Africa. Our continent remains underdeveloped partly because our children have been stripped of dignity, and their souls entangled in conflicts and unresolved injuries inflicted upon them. It is, therefore, not surprising that African children usually thrive outside the continent where there is a system of Child Protection, and rule of law that applies to everyone irrespective of status, power or position. I'll lend my voice to the battle cry to save our children and save Africa. We must not underestimate the power of our Collective Responsibility. What are you doing?