Tyre Importers Union at the African Tyre Village, Trade Fair Complex, Lagos, on Wednesday decried multiple charges on imported tyres by the various agencies at the ports.
The Vice-President of the union, Mr Okechukwu Ezeifeoma, expressed the displeasure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
He said the “never-ending“ charges on their consignments by government agencies, especially the Customs was killing their business.
The importer urged the Federal Government to intervene in the situation.
“Honestly, we are not happy with the situation. How can we talk of a profitable business when all we hope to make is used to pay charges to this and that government agencies?
“Even within Customs alone, they ask you to go to this section and pay; then pay on that desk and so on and by the time you finish payment, all your profit is gone.
“We are calling on the government to intervene in the situation because if something is not done soon we might just be forced out of business, “ he told NAN.
Ezeifeoma decried the influx of substandard tyres into the country, saying the situation was a threat to the economy as well as lives.
He said importers at the village would collaborate with the relevant government agencies, especially the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) to ensure that only quality tyres were brought into the country.
The importer commended SON for setting a target to rid the country of substandard goods within three months, adding that the nation stood to benefit immensely if the target was met.
It was an exercise the people of Ketu and areas around it would it holds every day. The opportunity to know their health status was presented to them courtesy of the Nigerian Legion, Corps of Commissionaires, Ketu Division, as part of its community health outreach programmes.
The free health service, according to the corps, was aimed at strengthening their relationship with the community in which they operate. And expectedly, the people trooped out in droves to benefit from the exercise.
The programme, which had representatives of the World Health Organisation (WHO) as part of the medical resource personnel, had more than 100 beneficiaries who waited patiently as the medical personnel checked them one after the other.
Welcoming the beneficiaries, the Commander of the division, Major Babalola Fanipe, said the programme was organised in order to provide basic health check services to members as part of the corps’ contributions to the well-being of its community.
“We intend to contribute towards sensitising the community to the importance of health checks and taking issues around our health and well-being seriously.
“The exercise is part of our pro-active and concrete steps to promote and foster the health of members, their families as well as members of the community,” he said.
Some of the beneficiaries, who spoke with Southwest Report, expressed happiness with the exercise. Mrs. Sherifat Murtala thanked the Legion for coming up with the programme, which she said would avail many indigent people of the opportunity to know their health status.
“It was my husband who came home to tell me about the exercise. We both decided to come and benefit from it. And I want to say a big thank you to the organisers,” she said.
Mrs. Folake Ogunleye also commended the organisers, who according to her have provided a platform for people who are ignorant of the need to check their health status.
“I think this is a very good gesture from these people. You know that most people are ignorant of the need to check their health status, and many simply die as a result of illnesses that are not supposed to lead to death. But with this development, many of us would go home happy that we know a little about our health status,” she said.
Fifty-Eight-year-old Matthew Bashorun was initially scared to present himself for the HIV and AIDS check. But after he tested negative after the test, he smiled and said: “Today is one of the happiest days of my life. I was scared at first, but I just summoned courage and did the test. Now that I have my result, I am very free from any fear.”
Speaking on the importance of the exercise, Mrs. Diana Udoh, representative of the Lagos State Action Committee on AIDS, said it was necessary that everyone knows about his HIV and AIDS status.
While commending the Legion for organising the exercise, Udoh urged other notable Nigerians to emulate the corps in the task of providing health facilities for the people, saying it is a tough job for the government to do alone.
The residents were offered free health checks on HIV and AIDS, diabetes, genotype and malaria, among other health issues.
The Naira on Monday, traded at N322 to a dollar at the parallel market in Lagos.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the currency was stable in the previous week, maintaining value of between N315 and N320 to a dollar.
However, the naira traded at N450 and N360 for Pound Sterling and the Euro respectively, at the day’s transaction.
The naira also maintained N197 at the official Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) rate.
Traders at the parallel market said that the proposed currency swap deal between Nigeria and China would shore up the value of the naira when implemented. (NAN)
The Lagos State Government at the weekend said it would henceforth strictly enforce the law on environmental offences, restriction of operation of commercial motorcycles, popularly called Okada on certain routes and street trading.
Rising from the monthly Security Council Meeting attended heads of all security agencies in the state and chaired by Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, the Government urged residents to willfully comply with the extant laws in the state to make the enforcement of the law easier.
Briefing Government House Correspondents on the outcome of the meeting, the State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Fatai Owoseni, urged the public to desist from patronising traders especially where street trading is not allowed.
Owoseni also counseled Lagosians to stop patronising commercial motorcyclists, popularly known as Okada operators on routes where the law restricts them from plying.
Owoseni, who briefed journalists alongside heads of the Army, Navy, Airforce and other security agencies in state, said: “The Council appraised the security situation in the state and looked at the challenges we are still having and from discussions and conclusions that were made, the Council agreed that lot of progress had been made.”
“We have covered lot of miles regarding security and safety in the state. For now, the State is relatively peaceful.
“We want to sustain that tempo; we want to improve on that tempo. We have looked at those areas we need to improve upon and basically those were the issues the Council considered,” Owoseni said.
When asked on the directive by Governor Ambode at the Town Hall Meeting in Ikorodu last week that Okada should not ply Mile 12-Ikorodu route, the Commissioner said: “Yes, we deliberated on that and I can tell you that we specifically considered the need to improve on enforcement of the laws of the state, especially the areas where we have been having challenges with members of the public with regard to enforcement. ”
“Specifically, I’m talking about the street trading, the restriction of commercial motorcyclists to certain areas. You see, there is need to have the buy-in of members of the public in all these and the Council considered the need for us to still tell the citizens that in as much as we want to enforce, there is also need for members of the public to willfully comply with extant laws of the State.
“When they comply and conform to the laws, it will be easier for security agencies to enforce. Where the law says there should not be street trading, people should not patronise street traders; where the law says Okada should not ply certain routes, people should not patronise commercial motorcyclists in those areas.
“But most importantly, as the Security Council has always emphasised , there is need for everyone to be security conscious and raise awareness about security in their surroundings,” Owoseni said.
Six innocent people, including two children, escaped been shot as robbers by a police officer at Ogudu Ori-Oke, Ogudu, Lagos on Saturday following a false alarm by a woman.
Police Inspector, Christian Onawona, attached to the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) of Lagos State Police Command reportedly hesitated in shooting occupants of a car said to have been snatched when he reasoned they didn’t look like robbers.
A statement by the police gave an account of how the shooting was averted.
” A woman, Lauretta Ehon, suddenly ran to inform RRS operatives patrolling the axis at about 17:30 hrs over the weekend, that some armed robbers just snatched her Toyota Camry car 2012. Immediately, the police officer followed her to give the supposed fleeing robbers a chase.
“On the trail of the robbers, there was a hectic traffic but in order to catch up with the thieves, the officer alighted from his official vehicle and mounted a motor bike to chase the acclaimed reported robbers. However, the occupants of the car, which was being chased never had an inkling that they were on the verge of being mistook for robbery and that the police was trailing them.
“In order to prevent the robbers from taking the vehicle with registration number, EP 932 KRD away, the officer shot into air. Upon hearing the gunshot fired by the officer, the driver of the vehicle applied the brake instantly. Then, the police officer cautiously approached the supposedly stolen vehicle only to discover that the occupants were three female, one male and two children. At this point, the police officer got to know that the complainant raised a false alarm.
“The occupants of the vehicle were, Sekinat Sanni, Wasiu Balogun, Bisola Balogun and Rukayat Joseph. The little children were, Sameer Balogun and Motunrayo Joseph of one and two year old respectively, all family going on social outing.
“The story later turned out to be faraway from the truth. What really transpired between the woman that raised false alarm and the owner of the 2012 Camry car was a mere business transaction which occurred about six years ago.
“The husband to the woman who raised false alarm and the owner of the car transacted a business which had to do with clearing of Tokunbo car from oversea. Unfortunately, the vehicle went into demurrage after the client (Mr Ehon) paid the clearing agent, (Mr Balogun). And between the duo, they have settled the matter amicably for both of them worked in the same company in Apapa.
“But to his paranoid wife, she had promised that she will collect the money from the clearing agent whenever she sets eyes on him. On the day of incident, the woman saw him and started threatening to snuff life out of him. But unknowingly to the woman, the man was not inside the car when she raised the false alarm but his family members were the occupants of the car.”
In her reaction, one of the lucky occupants of the car, Bisola Balogun, who was visibly elated said that she was full of praises to the officer who pursued them for not have misused his firearm.
“In fact, I am still at shock. If it were to be another police officer, it is possible that he might shoot our car and anything could have happened. We thank God and appreciate the officer for applying uncommon wisdom in handling the matter”, she added.
According to the Police PPRO, Dolapo Badmos, the police officer showed experience and bravery in handling the issue, if not for him, the entire event could have turned against the police.
The woman has been transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID), Panti, for prosecution.
A total of 25,781 candidates registered for this year’s National Common Entrance Examination (NCEE) in Lagos.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the examination was for admission into the 104 Unity Colleges across the country.
The Lagos State Zonal Coordinator, National Examinations Council (NECO), Mr Gbenga Olapade, organisers of the examination, told NAN in an interview on Saturday that a total of 115 centres were being used for the examination across the state.
Olapade said that there were additional four centres for this year’s examination, when compared with 111 centres used for the same examination in 2015.
According to him, from the additional centres, simple logic showed that more candidates registered for the examination in 2016.
Olapade said that it was expected that even with the large number of candidates, not all were being expected to sit for the examination as a result of one factor or the other.
“You cannot get 100 per cent attendance in any examination but I am impressed with the number of candidates that believed in and registered for this examination this year.
“It goes to show that there is a measure of standard in the colleges and Nigerians are beginning to reckon by the day with Federal Government Colleges,’’ he told NAN.
He attributed the steady progression of number of candidates for the examination in the country to the sound and qualitative education and other investments government put in place for the colleges across the country.
According to him, logistics to ensure a smooth conduct of the examination in the state had been deployed and all the supervisors were well briefed.
He said that with over two decades in the conduct of the examination, the council had ensured a zero tolerance to malpractices at all levels.
Olapade said that the council would not hesitate to deal decisively with any supervisor or staff found colluding with anyone to compromise the examination at any given point in time.
“The National Common Entrance Examination has been in place for well over two decades now.
“We conducted the first examination in 1993 when the board was still known as National Board for Educational Measurement which later metamorphosed into
SIR: I write to congratulate our visionary and bold leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu on his 64th birthday and also draw his attention to some of the lapses we encounter in respect of the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Lagos State.
As a leader, there is no doubt that he has done extremely well at both the state as well as the national level especially judging by the crucial role he played to bring about the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari in last year’s elections.
His brilliant performance as Lagos State governor for eight years is there for everyone to see. Not only this, his successor, Babatunde Raji Fashola continued in the same spirit. Today, Akinwumi Ambode is also doing well.
I implore Asiwaju to bring this spirit of effective succession plan into the Lagos APC so as to give room for a dynamic leadership in the party. A situation where party leaders are made to overstay in positions does not augur well for the growth and development of the polity.
The beauty of democracy is for its dividends to spread to as many people as possible. The leadership of APC should be extended to more capable hands.
The idea of keeping a person for too long in a position should be discouraged. In the mid 1990’s when I was made chairman of a statutory agency in the Ministry of Health, I told people at that time I would spend four years. At the end of four years, I resigned because I thought I could not add value to it again as my mission had been accomplished.
The time to reposition APC in Lagos is now and there is no other person better suited to do so than the Asiwaju himself.
The Mile 12 Traders Association, Lagos, has urged the Lagos State Government to upgrade the market instead of relocating to Imota area of the state.
The traders made the plea at a news conference on Thursday in Lagos.
The Secretary, Shukurah Yam Market, Mr Collins Obichukwu and the Chairman, Provision and Electronics Section, Chief Sunday Ossai, who spoke for the traders, said the traders were not consulted before making the decision to relocate.
Obichukwu suggested aid that the government should develop the market into a modern one with functional facilities like it did at Sura, Apongbon and Tejuosho markets with minimum hardship to the traders.
The trader said that the proposed relocation of the market would be at variance with their position during the meeting held with the government when the market was shut.
He said that the traders had earlier agreed with the government that issues bordering on relocation would be subjected to extensive consultation with the stakeholders of the market.
“The government did not dialogue with us before making declaration of relocating the market within six months.
“How will a government make unilateral declaration on a matter that affects our livelihood and the masses without due consultation with the people that will be directly affected particularly in a democratic dispensation.
“Instead of relocating us, government should modernise our market; after all we also pay tax,’’ he said.
Ossai said that the report, which claimed that the traders had agreed to the relocation was false.
He alleged that the traders were coerced by the state government to agree to relocation as a condition before the market could be reopened after the bloody clash in the area.
“We agreed under duress because the market had been closed for two weeks.
“We were hungry, our goods were rotting away and we were recording financial losses.
“If the government does not have ulterior motive of converting the market into an estate as it is being speculated, they should develop the market with the necessary infrastructure,’’ Ossai said.
The Iyaloja of Orisumbare Market, Mrs Dupe Ojo, said the traders had invested billions of naira in the market, adding that relocating within six months would be difficult.
“Mile 12 market is an international market that provides employment to over 250, 000 people.
“We appeal to the government to develop the market just like they did to Tejuosho and Oyingbo markets for economic growth in the state,’’ Ojo said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Mile 12 Market had been in existence for over 40 years and it occupies over 20 hectares of land.
In spite of the existence of the Child’s Rights Law and its status as Nigeria’s most cosmopolitan and most enlighten state, child and forced marriages still go on in several communities in Lagos unabated, reports BETTY ABAH
Amina Hassan spotted the signs with much trepidation. First, they came for her eldest sister, Zainab and two years later, they came for the second eldest, Maimuna. After another two years, when they came for her as soon she turned 16 like the other two before her, as usual with the gleeful wedding party in tow, Amina bolted with all the strength in her sprightly teenage legs. It was only a few months to her Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE).
“No, child marriage is not for me; my education first”, she blurted under her breath as she fled her home in the Ajegunle area of Lagos.
‘”I ran away from home to stay with a school friend of mine but my family and that of the groom waited patiently for me for those three days’, Miss Hassan recalled. “My father was no more so it was my uncle who was in charge. When I made a brief appearance at home to check if they had left, he got hold of me, beat me black and blue and said I was disgracing the family and shaming our tradition,” She said.
Amina Hassan; fought child marriage to get education, now promoting literacy in the Shuwa Arab community in Lagos
The next alternative was to seek refuge with the police. So, Amina again sneaked out and reported at the nearby Ajegunle-Boundary police station.
“But I received the shock of my life because some of my family members came and after some talk with the DPO, the story changed”, she said. The DPO took a long look at her and asked her to ‘cooperate’ with her family members as they had her best interest at heart.
“I looked him in the face and asked: ‘If I were your daughter, would you also say the same thing—that I should cooperate with them and get married at age 16?”
The obviously ruffled police officer, whom she remembered as having ‘bold, unforgettable tribal marks’, berated her for being a stubborn girl and promptly discharged her case from his station. The wedding party disappeared in great sorrow.
Thus, given up by both family and the police, Amina went on to finish her secondary school in that same year (1993), and university education at the famous Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria and went on to obtain a Masters Degree, the very first person and woman in her generation to accomplish that feat.
Though Amina set herself free by her determination and sheer guts, her two other sisters, Zainab and Maimuna who could not, have continued to live with the consequences of child marriage, decisions made entirely on their behalf by their elderly relatives.
Amina still recollects their ordeals with heavy heart. Fragile-framed Zainab had been tricked into a party ostensibly held in her uncle’s house in the Oregun area of Lagos not knowing it was her own traditional wedding. She was later taken to Asaba in Delta State where her elderly husband, a polygamist, was waiting for her. She later ran back home from her elderly husband, unable to cope.
But the most dramatic was that of her sister Maimuna. ‘We had all prepared for school that morning and were all in our school uniform,’’ Amina recalls. Our uncle addressed Maimuna and told her no school for her that day as her husband had come for her. She had no idea who the man was or what he looked like. “My uncle had made the choice on her behalf. We all started wailing. Our neighbours’ children also came and joined in the wailing, but it was too late as a station wagon was already parked outside ready for her. They took her away in her school uniform. She was in SS1 at Oregun High School and was one of the best in the entire school, always coming first or second’.
Maimuna was virtually bundled and taken to Chad from where, unable to cope with the domestic work (including cooking for her husband’s large extended family), she ran back to Lagos, selling her belongings along the long lengthy and traumatic way from Chad to Lagos heavy with pregnancy, giving birth and losing the child thereafter. Like her sister before her, Maimuna never went back to school.
“My sisters were very intelligent and were well known in school for their brilliance, but these people just ruined their lives’, said Amina, established the Shuwa Arab Development Initiative (SADI), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), after graduating from the university in 2009, to try and right the wrongs of the past and save other girls from the ordeal of girl marriage.
Through SADI, she has facilitated the education of more than 100 children, boys and girls among the Shuwa Arabs (an indigenous community with roots in North East Nigeria) in Lagos.
Thriving culture
The above occurred mostly in the early 1990’s and therefore it could be assumed that child or forced early marriage is a thing of the past in Metropolitan Lagos, Nigeria’s most developed and most urbane city.
Yet, Aisha Nasirudeen, 19, sitting, stroking her three children’s heads idly in the face-me-I-face-you compound of her rundown house on Odo Street in the Obalende area of Lagos, did not just portray the picture of urban poverty. She aptly personified the victim of an on-going and vibrant tradition of child marriage in settler communities across Lagos as relevant government agencies entrusted with the responsibility of acting against it, continue to look the other way or engage only in lame rhetoric.
“My ambition was to become a doctor, but now I know I can’t achieve that dream anymore. My son Yahaha will achieve it for me”, said Aisha who was married off four years ago when she was barely 16 and in Senior Secondary Two (SS2).
Aisha Nasirudeen and her three children
Quiet and tall Aisha, with features akin to that of a model is one of 28 children of a prominent alfa (Muslim cleric) who hails originally from Katsina. She is the last of three wives of Alhaji Mohammed Nasirudeen, who hails from the Upper Volta region of Ghana but converted to Islam and adopted Bornu as his state. He was formerly a disciple of Aisha’s cleric father.
In a tone oscillating between sarcasm and seriousness, Aisha’s husband, Nasirudeen, 44, who runs a thriving restaurant in Obalende, says marriage was the best option for his wife. “You know some of these girls that have a tendency to be stubborn,’ he said, smiling from ear to ear and revealing his beautiful golden tooth. “it is always better to marry them off as soon as possible. It is for their good”, he added with relish.
nlike Nasirudeen, Garba Abu, 55, who came to Lagos 25 years ago, is a repentant man. The Jigawa State-born man who, after over two decades as a security guard, now runs an almost empty kiosk at the College Road in Ogba area of Lagos, and doubles as a water vendor, had given out his three daughters Bintu, Saratu and Sadia as teenagers. Now, with the little earnings from his small businesses he and his wife ensure his younger children,Aminat, 13 and Muritala, 9 get a relatively good education. They are currently pupils in the nearby African Church Primary School, Ifako-Ijaiye.
“There is so much difference between a person that goes to school and the one that didn’t,” he said, casting a distant look at his shrinking wares. “It is easy for an educated girl to get a job because she understands English while the ones that doesn’t understand English loses job opportunities.’
A neighbour who has known the Garbas for several years recounted how one of the daughters, already in secondary school and doing very well, was ‘plucked’ off to her husband’s house. ”On the day of the ceremony, we asked her who her husband was but she told us that she hadn’t met him yet and that one of her sisters had gone to check his place where she would be moving to later in the evening, and that is when she would see him for the first time”.
Deadly consequences
Forced marriages such as the above have sometime led to tragic situations such as the one involving Wasilat Tasiu, a 14-year old bride who poisoned and killed her husband, Umar Sani, and four other guests in Kano a few days after she was married off, in December 2014. According to her, she committed the crime in order to realise her dream of acquiring an education. Another tragic incident involved Rahama Hussaini who killed her husband, Tijjani Nasiru, in March 2015 in protest over being forced to marry the man who was her cousin.
Child marriage, with its devastating consequences on the overall welfare of the girl child remains one of the sore points and clogs in the wheel of Nigeria’s progress. The country, according to UNICEF, has the highest rate of girl marriage in Africa with over 50% of women in the North married off before or by age 16.
According to a recent report by Ford Foundation, about 48% of girls in Nigeria, predominantly in rural areas, are married off before age 18. Cases of Vesicovaginal Fistula (VVF), maternal mortality, have been on the increase especially in rural areas. Also, according to a 2013/2014 UNESCO report, Nigeria has the highest number of out-of-school children in the world, numbering 11/5 million. This owes mostly to economic hardship and government’s indifference to children and the non-implementation of the Access to Universal Basic Education law in addition to the on-going anti-western education insurgency in the north.
Out of this figure, girls are in the majority. The gross lack of interest in girl education and welfare in many regions across Nigeria’s has given rise to child marriage as economically-hit families want to ‘do away’ quickly with their girl children so as to give priority attention to their boy counterparts.
Girls at Agbado and Agege railway area in Lagos; risk falling prey to child marriage
Child marriage not only deprives a girl of education and her childhood but exposes them to sexually transmitted disease such as HIV especially since they are unable to negotiate for safer sex.
A 2014 report by UNICEF titled ‘Ending Child Marriage, Progress and Prospects’ indicates that though child marriage in Nigeria has reduced by one per cent annually in the last 30 years, hundreds of girls are still at risk due to Nigeria’s peculiarly large population. It further revealed that of the world’s 1.1 billion under aged girls, 22 million are already married. The global body also expressed fears that if there is no reduction in child bride practices, up to 280 million girls will be married before age 18. That could even increase to 320 million by 2050 owing to population growth.
Besides, child marriage directly hurts the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Goal SGD 5 which focuses on gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls.
Forced marriages and the impunity thereof is exemplified by the globally known case of the more than 200 girls abducted from the Government Secondary School in Chibok Town, Bornu State, Northern Eastern Nigeria in April 2014 by Boko Haram insurgents. According to their leader in a recorded interview, the girls had been married off. Two years later, despite the worldwide #BringBackOurGirls campaign, not only have 219 of the girls captured from their hostel rooms had their educational dreams aborted, they are yet to be found.
‘Lagos State Government looking the other way’
However, while the reports and researches on girl marriage prevalence have focused on rural areas and especially the North fora long time, recent findings have revealed a steady culture of girl marriage in communities in urban areas such as Lagos. Girl marriage is prevalent, even if at a comparatively reduced rate, in settler communities and secluded populations of the Hausa-Fulani, Nupes, Shuwa Arabs and as well as minority populations from Benin Republic and Togo. The communities include Makoko, Kofiganmen sea side area of Badagry, Ojo, Agege, New Okoba, Ijora, Marine Beach among several others across Lagos.
Makoko, Lagos’ largest slum, a predominantly fishing community which hosts a pout-pouri of ethnicities drawn from across Nigeria, Togo and Benin Republic, is a classic case. According to a report by an NGO, Action Health Incorporated, Makoko has the highest number of teenage mothers. While many of the surveyed and the current are pre-marital pregnancies, hundreds of others are child brides.
On a recent evening as the sun set over Makoko and the impoverished community assumed its rambunctious train of routine evening commerce and camaderie, Juliana Idowu, 17, Rhoda Awahajinu, 16 and Sena Kobozina, 20 sat exhausted in a shop, after the day’s task, fielding questions impatiently from this reporter. They were warming up to go home so as to perform their usual wifely responsibilities of cooking, washing, feeding their children and pleasing their mostly young husbands in a variety of ways. The young mothers and wives have many things in common. Each had a child, each was married and each had her education cut short in order to take on marital roles and is currently learning vocational skills, mainly hairdressing or tailoring. Other than concentrating on their skills, owning their own shops ultimately and rearing healthy children, none had any more ambition. Like hundreds of other girls in the community, some of them became pregnant between ages 14 and 15.
The young wives and mothers of Makoko
Yet a rather more worrying trend in Makoko is that of some parents are not only forcing their teenage daughters into marriage once they become pregnant, but compelling their them to marry much older men in that condition, with the pregnancy.
In this category are Bose Nge, 14 who is pregnant, Elizabeth Avonzetin 18,mother of two, Jane Zanu, 18, also a mother of two and Olorunwa Humgbe Louis who lost her first baby and is pregnant with a second one. While Zannu’s twin brother is in a French school in Badagry, her sole ambition now learning tailoring and being a good mother and wife. All became mothers and wife as teenagers.
“Here, once a girl becomes pregnant, she is expected to identify the boy or young man that is responsible. The girl’s family thus organises a marriage ceremony and sends the girl off to live with the boy as his wife, and if he is still with the parents, she goes to live with them”, said Mariam Kusika, 24, mother of three and herself a victim of child marriage.
The only snag, she added, is when the boy denies and the baales (local chiefs) would wade in. “But most times the girl’s parents are not disposed to keeping her and would quickly ‘dispose’ of her ‘free of charge’ to any willing person alongside her pregnancy. We have seen so many of such cases here,”said Mrs. Kusika, who, after learning from her mistakes, is now hoping to go back to school later this year, and currently earning a variety of skills and running a girl empowerment club.
Paulina Vigan, a trader and mother of one of the pregnant and hastily married Makoko girls, corroborated Kusika’s claims. Her daughter is fourteen years old. And she has no regrets.
‘My daughter is very stubborn,’ she said, her forehead furrowed in a blend of anger and grief. ‘I thank God the parents of the boy who impregnated her accepted and took her in. Our traditions has no room for unwanted pregnancies and the boy who impregnated her is just about 17 years and in JSS Two. If they had refused, I would have sent her far away where nobody knows her until she gives birth or better still, give her and her unborn child to an old man, who might be willing to take her in as the third or fourth wife so as to reduce the stigma. Besides tradition, I couldn’t even have coped because I am just a poor trader and my business is not generating much profit and she has siblings I still have to fend for. I am so sad that she can’t go back to school again, if I had the money, I would have wanted her to become very educated, because I really liked her’.
‘’Child marriage has serious negative consequences for these girls,’ says Bimbo Oshobe, a community worker in Makoko. ‘Besides the health implications due to their unripe bodies, we have discovered that many of these child marriages don’t last because most times both the husbands and wives are too young and inexperienced and therefore unable to handle so many issues. Sometimes too, some of these men are even old enough to be their fathers’, she added. Oshobe advised the Lagos State Government, rather than being detached, to carry out sensitization program or partner with grassroots ngos that would reach the people with the relevant messages and orientation.
Adewale Akintimehin, 74, a retired police officer who has lived in Makoko since 1963, echoes Oshobe’s complaint. ‘The politicians come every four years with promises but we hardly see any of them fulfilled. And, when we demanded to know why, they would either say ‘Rome was not built in a day’, or that they were not the ones in the office in the previous term,’ he said, downcast. Akintimehin however hoped that ‘this Ambode regime would be better than the last one in terms of education’.
“We have seen girls of 14, 15, 16 years, some even 13 getting married here,” he said. Once they are physically developed, they want to identify with a man, or when they are asked to repeat a class,” he stressed. He also blamed the trend of negligence on the parts of some of the parents and peer pressure.
Education pays; Akintimehin and his daughter Ibukun at the airport in Finnland
A respected, outspoken community leader and founding member of the influential The Act of Apostle Church in the locality, Akintimehin said the church and community leaders were working towards reducing the rate of teenage pregnancy and child marriage by encouraging school enrolment.
‘We are now preparing for the annual ‘Makoko Day’ and one of the features of that day is the donations of free WAEC forms to both our boys and girls who are ready and who have passed through some tests to be administered’, he revealed, insisting that things would have been better had government been more attentive.
Amidst the challenges, Akintimehin is highly celebrated in Makoko as being an exemplar in promoting girl child education. By ensuring his first daughter, 44 year-old Ibukun Elizabeth delay marriage and obtain a university degree, he is happier and prouder for it. Ibukun now has a Master degree and lives happily with her husband and two children in Finland and invites her father for occasional holidays. Even in absentia, she remains a Makoko ‘girl hero’.
Abdullahi, a youthful leader of the bustling Hausa community in Agege Pen Cinema area and graduate of the Lagos State Polytechnic, spoke in the same vein. ‘They are so many children here, both boys and girls that are not in school. No government official has ever engaged us to know what is happening here or to try and enrol them in school’ he told this reporter in the office of the Seriki, local chief of the market. The Hausa population here, constituting itinerant traders, artisans and sometimes beggars has increased astronomically since the on-going insurgency particularly in the North East. By all calculation, with lack of education and government’s interest, many of the girls there who currently hawk fura da nunu (cow milk) around the railway side market risk being married off early.
A lot more sensitization, enforcement of law needed
Several attempts in the course of three weeks, to interview the Lagos State Commissioner for Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation (WAPA), Mrs. Lola Akande , failed. However, a source at the Lagos State Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation (WAPA) who craves anonymity insisted that the government was trying its best in ‘responding to the cases as they happen.’ ‘The fact that armed robberies happen does not mean the police doesn’t exist’. He urged affected persons to report to the nearest police station as the stations are now armed with human rights and family units.
He further pointed at the Lagos Child Rights Law 2007 which made profuse provisions outlawing child marriage. Also, only in February, he added, the state launched a well-publicised campaign titled ‘Ending Violence Against Children in Nigeria: Priority Actions: Lagos State’, which is was a multi-sectoral response to the 2014 Nigeria Violence Against Children Survey. The launch campaign has the backing of UNICEF, USAID, US Centre for Diseases Control and Prevention and other agencies.
However, Princess Olufemi-Kayode, a child’s rights activist and anti-rape expert and Executive Director of Media Concern for Women and Children (MEDIACOM), argued that government needs to do a lot more if child marriage must become history in Lagos State. “Just like the rest of the states that have passed the 2003 Child Rights Act, the issue is about enforcement”, she said.
Olufemi-Kayode also blamed lack of communication between government and the masses, especially the uneducated. ‘How much of information about such laws do the general public have? Even the police that are supposed to enforce the law don’t even have the necessary information.’ She advised the government to embark on massive public awareness including exploring the use of local languages that are accessible to the masses in addition to utilising such medium of mass communication as the ubiquitous and effective radio. ‘Child marriage is rape by another name because these girls are minors. It disrupts their lives and we must do everything to stop it,’ she added.
According to Victoria Ibezim-Ohaeri, a human rights lawyer and Executive Director of Spaces for Change, an ngo, girl marriage anywhere in Nigeria is a pointed violation of the rights of children and of country’s constitution.
‘The Nigerian Constitution puts the statutory age of adults at 18. Anyone lower than that is a minor and cannot give consent, and marriage is a decision that requires consent and consent cannot be given by a minor,’ she said.
Victoria Ibezim-Ohaeri, Executive Director, Spaces for Change; ‘Child marriage is unconstitutional’.
For citizens below the age of 18, the Constitution imposes certain obligations on states to protect their interests and welfare. Section 17 (3)(f) of the 1999 Constitution requires states of the federation to direct their policies towards ensuring that children, young persons and the aged are protected against any exploitation whatsoever, and against moral and material neglect.
Keep in mind that the child rights legislations follow the tenor of the Constitution. Child Rights Act criminalizes having carnal knowledge of a child below the age of 18. This has been interpreted to mean that 18 years is the legal age of consensual sex in Nigeria. Child Rights Act applies in twenty-four (24) states of the federation (including Lagos) and the Federal Capital Territory.
‘The fact is that though Lagos is a rapidly urbanising and metropolitan society, we must know that Nigeria is basically a cultural society. The traditions and religious practices and dispositions have a great influence over people and so even when come to Lagos or other big cities, those cultures still guide and inform their private lives,’ she added.
Echoing Olufemi, Ibezim-Ohaeri maintained that the Lagos State needs to enforce the Child Rights Act it so vigorously passed to safeguard children within its territories.
‘Having a law is a good step but people being aware and the government enforcing the law is another thing. The enforcement mechanism of the state needs to develop to a stage where it can enforce all the provisions of the Child Rights Act. They have taken some steps like setting up family courts but a lot of gaps need to be filled. Public education can play a major role. The people need to be sensitised as to the risk they put their daughters through. They need to know they are putting their daughters’ life, health, education, and futures at risk, I believe they will consciously make the decision not to marry out their daughters. They get to need to get to that level of consciousness so they can make informed decisions about their daughters’ futures.’
A General Physician, Dr Tosin Olowojebutu, on Thursday advised people with high Blood Pressure (BP) not to consume canned foods and fatty or oily foods which were detrimental to their health.
Olowojebutu, who is the Medical Director, Liberty-Life Hospital, Ogudu, Lagos, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that canned and fatty foods would increase blood pressure level.
According to him, people should also ensure that they live and work in smoke-free environments.
He described blood pressure as “the pressure at which blood pushes against ones’ vessels as blood passes through the body’’.
“A normal blood pressure allows blood to flow and deliver oxygen and food to different parts of the body.
“We measure blood pressure with two numbers (124/84 mmHg). The first number is called the systolic blood pressure and the second is called the diastolic blood pressure.
“Systolic blood pressure is the highest blood pressure measurement and it is recorded when the heart contracts.
“Diastolic blood pressure is the lowest blood pressure measurement and it is recorded when the heart relaxes and fills with blood.
“The ideal blood pressure is 120/70mmHg; any figure between this and 140/90 is pre-hypertension and a call to action and lifestyle modifications, ’’ Olowojebutu said.
He urged people with high blood pressure to reduce the risks associated with High BP through modification of their lifestyle.
“People with high BP should be physically active for 30 to 60 minutes daily by walking, biking, swimming, dancing or any other physical activity.
“They should eat a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables, low fat dairy products and other foods low in fat and salt,’’ Olowojebu said.
He added that drinking less and keeping the body weight within a healthy range would also help to prevent and lower blood pressure.
“It is important to stop smoking if one has high blood pressure.
“Smoking increases the risk of developing heart problems and other diseases’’ Olowojebutu told NAN
