THE CHALLENGES OF THE AFRICAN CHILD: NIGERIA AS A CASE STUDY

THE CHALLENGES OF THE AFRICAN CHILD: NIGERIA AS A CASE STUDY

 Sheyi is barely six years old, yet he has to contribute something to improve the fortunes of the family, he hawks plantain every morning before going to school and he continues in the evening, he sells bottled drinks with snacks at Berger bus park just to complement the little pittance his parents earns. Sheyi's story is a common one, these are situations we are confronted with on a daily basis, you will always see child laborers, child hawkers, child beggars, child conductors and even child agberoes in every nook and cranny of our metropolises and you would be forced to wonder if it is as bad as it is made to seem.  In rural areas, children, especially girls, start work at 5 or 6 years of age.

Today, 16th of June is the International day of the African Child and the bitter truth is that the African child is the most shortchanged in the world. In subsequent paragraphs, I would examine the challenges children from the black man continent are faced with using Nigeria as a reference point.

Nigeria is the most populated country in Africa, this writer's country of birth and the worst place to be born but ironically, the country is equally the highest exporter of crude on the continent which makes her the best example. According to a UNICEF survey, 45% of the country's total population is below the age of 15 which implies that about 66,484,000 people are within age 15 or below. This astonishing figure should be a reference point for the country's administrators because this age group is what we generally refer to as leaders of tomorrow. Hence, they should be given utmost consideration when decisions are taken but, is that the case?

The first and most vital need of every child is Healthcare, this should be provided at no cost but the Nigerian child does not have or has limited access to this. According to statistical figures, Nigeria is the country with the highest maternal mortality rate in the world. Below is the list of some strange but true facts about the situation of things in the country:

Ø The maternal mortality rate in Nigeria is 1,100 per 100,000 live births                                                

Ø Only 35% of birth are attended by a skilled health personnel                                                     

Ø Infant Mortality rate is presently 75 per 1,000 live births                                                             

Ø Child mortality rate under age 5 is 133 per 1,000 children                                                           

Ø 27% of children under the age of 5 are underweight                                                                     

Ø 38% children have had their growth stunted

Second on my list is Education, the provision of qualitative and quantitative education in Nigeria still reminds a mirage, government at all levels has failed in this regard. A report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) ranked Nigeria first among the nations where large populations of schoolchildren are not in the classrooms, the report shows that one out of every five children in Nigeria is out of school. The statement said that new statistics showed that 57 million children were out of school globally in 2011 and about 20% of these deprived kids are Nigerians with approximately 10.5million Nigerian children out of school and one is forced to wonder where these high budgetary allocations end up. Nigeria's 2014 budget proposal for education was #493million, representing 10.7% of the total budget proposal of #4.6billion and it also amounts to a 15% increase over 2013 budget. However, the need to ensure that these budgeted funds get to the end users is imperative because this constant and commendable rise in budgetary allocations is not in tandem with the continuous fall in the standard of education.

In Nigeria, officials routinely steal funds appropriated for building classrooms, buying textbooks and implementing programs that should bring more children to school. Recently, some officials were indicted for stealing funds released to the nomadic education responsibility of getting fulani herdsman to enroll their kids in school.

Domestic Abuse - Domestic abuse which include but not limited to physical, sexual, emotional and physiological forms of abuse is rampant in Africa. African parents are guilty of these offence but physical abuse is the highest, the barbaric believe that a child needs to be spanked in other to correct his wrongdoings is domiciled in the average African parent. "Spear the rod and spoil the child", right? Well, the truth that we all have to accept is the unarguable fact that, lately, the rod has not been enough to correct and modify the characters of the child. Most of the children with this rough mode of upbringing have in most cases turned out to be hardened criminals with little or no sympathy at all. That is the sad truth.

Apparently, Rape cases in Nigeria is alarming and the most painful part is that most of these horrible incidents are not reported because of fear of stigmatization and the negative effects of unnecessary publicity, the menace has only continue to increase, the victims are helpless in this regard because most of these predators are family relatives, neighbors or close friends whom the parents regard highly trustworthy. According to dependable statistics, 23% of children below the age of 15 have at a point being sexually abused by a trusted family friend or relative.

Deprivation is another issue that needs to be urgently tackled, there are certain necessities of life that most children from our continent do not have, the advent of technology has made the world a global village and the whole world is just a click away but the story is not the same in this part of the world; computers, phones, cameras, tablets and other every day gadgets are still alienated from many because of the disparity in standard of living caused by the uneven distribution of income.

The percentage of population living below the poverty line of $1 per day is 70.2%. This means that more than 70% per cent of the 160million Nigerians are extremely poor. From the provision of a conducive and befitting shelter, to the provision of food at affordable prices that would benefit the teeming Nigeria population, subsequent administrations have failed the Nigerian child. Poverty has ravaged the land to the extend that trivial things that should not ordinarily matter are used as a yardstick to differentiate between the rich and the poor. A very funny example is bottled and sachet water. You know what i mean, don't you?

Lastly, security - the recent kidnap of secondary school girls in chibok, Borno state has exposed the comatose in the Nigerian security situation. On Monday April 14th, the Boko Haram insurgents kidnapped about 274 students from the Government Secondary school, Chibok and till this present moment they are nowhere to be found.

If the situation is to be improved on, the government, parents, NGOs and international organisations like the UN, UNESCO, Amnesty International among others have to ensure that efforts are channeled forwards ensuring the fate of the African child is not tampered on.

The Government has the most important role to play, the present situation of things in the country is partly because of negligence and the nonchalant attitude of political office holders. The government needs to provide the following to make the life of the Nigerian child more meaningful.

i.       Provision of adequate security.

ii.     Provision of equitable access to health and quantitative education.

iii.  Provision of legislations that would soften the plight of children from this part of the world.

Parents are also guilty of neglect as the government is, the average Nigerian parent believes that money and material things super-cedes all forgetting that adequate love, care and attention are equally needed to nurture the child to greater heights.

Conclusively, the international day of the African child is a day set aside by the United Nations to ensure that children born into the world through this continent are given almost the same preferential treatment like their counterparts outside of it and these years' edition could not have come at a better time, the kidnapped secondary school girls are still in the grip of Boko Haram extremists and most of what make the rounds are gory stories of the inhumane treatments melted at them in the den of these fanatics. All we are saying is:

#BRING BACK OUR GIRLS

OLUSANYA OLUWOLE SHERIFF