The Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Abimbola Akeem Owoade, has said that a working child protection system is a prerequisite for any nation aspiring for growth and development.
He stated that planning for development without an enforceable set of laws, policies, regulations and services across social sectors could only amount to a futile exercise.
He said, “Children represent the future and ensuring their healthy growth and development ought to be a prime concern of all. It is a fact that nations that experience prosperity are where family stability is jealously guarded.
“To achieve global development goals, Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child provides for the protection of children in and out of the home. Similarly, Nigeria’s Child Rights Act 2003 provides for children’s rights.
“This explains why, in spite of being regarded as precious gifts from God and best hope for the future, children are still subjected to abuses and neglect.”
Oba Owoade gave the admonition yesterday while addressing pupils from the Federal College of Education (Special) Basic School from Durbar, Oyo town.
The monarch, accompanied by his Queen Consort, Ayaba Abiwunmi, lamented that today, fundamental rights of children are being encroached upon daily without appropriate sanction.
“This is so, not because we do not have laws and policies on child protection, but due to a lack of social consensus and political will to successfully implement laws and policies. It could be heartbreaking reading about inhuman and degrading treatment being meted out to Nigerian children both at home and institutional level.
“In some schools, it is still usual to see children being subjected to all forms of corporal punishment. Child abuse also occurs at home when parents unduly yell, threaten, reject or ignore the child.
“It could be shocking to see the extent to which some parents rain curses on their children. Some even fail to provide basic needs, adequate food, clothing, hygiene and medical care or support for their children.
“All these can lead to interference with the child’s normal social or psychological development, leaving the child with lifelong psychological scars.
“Also, sexual abuses, which include but are not limited to child marriage, are a form of child abuse that has become a scourge in our society. Cases abound where fathers, uncles, guardians, male teachers, clerics, among others, have sexually molested underage girls.
“Some engage in child abuse for ritual purposes, and most time this leads to mental disorder on the part of the abused child, with perpetrators escaping sanction.
“Here is an extreme weakness of child protection systems in Nigeria, and more worrisome is that there seems to be no reprieve in sight for the victims, as children’s rights advocates complain of weak child protection structures in the country.”
Alaafin further explained that the only way citizens can cease to be prisoners of their historical geographical spaces, times, bounded by cultural languages and societies into which they were born, is to completely revolutionise their historiography.
‘’The key to national reconstruction lies in accepting the past as a source of generation, as this will enable our present to merge with our past and further into an enlarged future. Only then can we really identify with what constitutes our real local resource base on which to build a virile, healthy future, for ourselves and our descendants”.
Oba Owoade urged Nigerians to support and be patient with the present administration in its sincere and painstaking efforts at transforming the country.
Commenting on the diminishing value system, he harped on the role of the family in maintaining a stable and crime-free society, which he said cannot be overemphasised.
“The increasing rate of family marriage breakdown and its attendant effect on the children and the society at large has become a ticking time-bomb because it has given rise to an increase in criminal activities by the children of the broken homes.
“It is important that we recognise the role of marriage in building a strong society, especially if we want to give children the best chance in life. What you learn from a very early age has a great deal to say about the person you will eventually become and the life you lead”, he added.
The traditional value system of the Nigerian society, like most other African societies, he observed, is characterised by such enduring features as collectivism, loyalty to authority and community, truthfulness, honesty, hard work, tolerance, love for others, mutual harmony, and co-existence and identification of individuals with one another.
He said further, “Other distinctive features of the Nigerian traditional society are abhorrence for theft, incest and high values for life. Stealing was considered extremely disgraceful, and lives were highly valued. All these values which made society secure and safe have all gradually been discarded or lost.
“However, new obnoxious values have succeeded the lost ones, as citizens are often acquainted with modernity and civilisation.”
The monarch asserted that most traditional “Nigerian endearing values and morals have been traded off for western values, which portend a dangerous precedent.”
While urging the pupils to be serious about their studies in order to be responsible citizens in the future, Oba Owoade also enjoined management of the School not to relent on its oars in imparting adequate knowledge on the special needs pupils.
The highlight of the occasion was the cultural song performance for the Alaafin.
