Korede and Nigeria’s other endangered children

The recent rescue of a malnourished nine-year old boy identified as Korede Taiwo, who had been chained with a heavy padlock to a log of wood by his father at Atan-Ota, Ogun State, is yet another confirmation of the harrowing fate of some children in the country. Korede had been chained like a dog in his father’s supposed church, Celestial Church of Christ, Key of Joy parish, for months and starved to the extent that his ribs stuck out like paddles. He was so weak that the officials of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps who rescued him following a tip-off by a neighbour had to physically carry him to a hospital where he was treated and later discharged to the Ogun State Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, from where the Ogun State First Lady, Mrs. Amosun, is said to have promised to take care of him.
Korede’s “crime”, as confirmed by his father identified as Francis Taiwo; his stepmother and himself, was that he stole meat from his stepmum’s soup pot and he was also becoming a habitual thief. But then, the boy confessed that he was in the habit of stealing because he was not always fed and was always hungry. He also pleaded with his rescuers not to take him back to his father.
Korede’s father has explained that the torturing and chaining of the boy were spiritual treatment to exorcise the spirit of stealing from him. Interestingly, both he and his wife said they were not aware that what they did was a criminal offence.
The Korede story is, unfortunately, yet another instance of inhumanity to children that is now becoming rampant in the country.   From virtually every part of the country, reports that are emerging on the abuse of children are raising questions about the value system in Nigeria. Children are virtually adored and properly cared for in many parts of the world. In many developed countries, the abuse of children is seriously frowned at and the governments do everything within their powers to ensure that they are not maltreated in any way. Although the abuse of children is not totally unheard of in these countries, it does not occur with the frequency with which the problem is being recorded in Nigeria in recent times.
These days, hardly a day passes without reports of children being raped, stolen, kidnapped or killed.  Stories of fathers, who should be the number one protectors of their own children, raping these children and sometimes impregnating them, have become regular fare in our newspapers.  Babies are reared like chickens and sold at a price in some places in the country. Child labour is rife and the police in the country do not appear to take child abuse and rape as serious crimes. Instead, their lackadaisical attitude and quick advice to the families of raped children to settle the matter out of court suggests that they do not see any big deal in the rape of children at all. This is more so as reports of policemen raping both adults and children are also becoming rampant in the country.
All stakeholders need to take the protection of children against abuse such as happened to Korede seriously. There is no denying the fact that the growing criminality and insurgence in many parts of the country today are partly due to the failure of parents and the society to ensure the proper orientation and maturation of their children into responsible adulthood.
It is this failure on the part of some parents that has made some youths to become willing tools in the hands of those who use them for terrorist activities and other unsalutory purposes. This is because quite a large number of these youths have no education and no skills that they can fall back on to earn a living. They, therefore, easily become prey to unconscionable elements in the society.
The harsh economic conditions in the country are not at all helping Nigerian children. Malnutrition has become a serious problem, with the pictures coming out of some Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps looking like pictures from war zones. Even outside the camps, the high cost of food in the country is badly affecting the feeding of many children. This high cost of goods is coming at a time when many workers are being owed several months’ arrears of salaries. Such difficult times cannot but affect the living condition of children.
But then, nothing can justify the maltreatment and failure to properly nurture children in the country. It is time for Nigerians to be alert to the dangers to which children are now being exposed in the country. This is the time to be our neighbours’ keepers. But for the conscientious   whistleblower who alerted the civil defence officials to the fate of Korede, this boy would certainly have died from the ill-treatment he suffered from his own father and stepmother.
The NSCDC officials who rescued Korede deserve kudos for saving the life of the boy. It is clear that there is no love lost between the boy and his father and stepmother, and he will be better off not living with them for any reason.  The boy has spoken of his dream to become a medical doctor.
But for his ordeal that brought him to the limelight, it is doubtful that he could have lived to fulfill that dream. Even he survived the ill-treatment of his father, he had already dropped out of school and there is no way he could have attended a secondary school, let alone a medical college.
It is good that his father has now been arrested. He should be made to pay for his crime, to send a message to other child abusers on the impropriety of his action. This story cannot have a happy ending if Korede remains in the custody of his unloving father. He will be better off if well meaning Nigerians take interest in his case and help him to realise his dream of becoming a medical doctor.