The Nigerian child: From cradle to the grave

By 

Isaac Sagay

 

"Suffer little children to come unto me…" –St Mark.

THE BIBLE story is familiar enough, and it is even made more famous, by its association with one of the best loved and popular quotations in the scriptures, "Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these". This intervention by Jesus Christ was provoked, when his disciples sought to discourage those who had brought children to be prayed for and blessed by Jesus. As affirmed by the Lord, the Heavenly Kingdom indeed belongs to the children; but here on earth, there is scarcely a place for them – neither genuinely in our hearts, nor are they taken as a serious factor by the state, in the nation’s socioeconomic development plans.

 

All around us, in our streets and by ways and city slums, the consequences of child neglect are everywhere visible; even though ostrich like, we would rather that children remain invisible, so that the misery etched in their faces as a result of our neglect, do not give us a bad conscience, We recall and recoil, with horror, the unspeakable sufferings of children in the East, during the Biafran insurrection that led to the Nigerian Civil war. Although the children played no part in precipitating the civil war, they suffered most; hapless victims of events they neither desired, nor understood. While some adults, on both sides of the conflict, made good with the spoils of war, it was the children that bore the cruelest ravages of the war, particularly malnutrition, in the form of "Kwashiorkor" an illness whose most visible sign, is a distended and bloated stomach, mounted on skeletal hips and spindle like legs below, and above, a reed like neck, superimposed by a skull with sunken sockets for eyes.

 

These were the pictures, which were beamed around the world, and provoked a universal upwelling of revulsion, against the war, and consequently resulted in unprecedented sympathy for Biafra. Every mother, and every father, saw in the picture of these child victims, a mirror image of their own children. For truly, as Hilary Clinton observed some time ago, "There is no such thing as other people’s children". They are all God’s children above, and our’s too, here on earth.

 

But the question is, has the lot of the Nigerian Child changed markedly_ for the better since the end of the civil war, or has the quality of life he enjoys palpably deteriorated? I know of no better subject matter for sociological study, than to research the steady decline, in the fortunes of the Nigerian Child, from the cradle to the grave of adolescence; beginning from that moment in childhood, when, "the whining school boy with his satchel; And shining morning face, creeping like snail, unwillingly to school" (Shakespeare).

 

The outcome of such a study should make compelling, though without doubt, depressing reading. The immediate question that comes to mind is, have we changed, and become less caring as parents, even though on average, people are more affluent now, and also better educated, than most parents were, two or three generations back?

 

The disruption of family cohesion and solidarity, is certainly one of the remote causes of the attenuation of family values, and in particular, the tradition of "a duty of care", of which children are the first and most vulnerable victims.

Yet, families are the means by which children, and indeed all human beings, know themselves what they are, how they got to become who they are, and what they are expected to become as a vessel for the perpetuation of family values, fortunes and glory.

 

These high expectations elude the grasp of children, whose most serious preoccupation is playing about, with no premonition of the fate that awaits them, as a result of parental neglect. Thomas Gray catches this mood of children’s innocence, in his Eton College Elegy: "Alas, regardless of their doom, the little victims play! No sense have they of ills to come, Nor care beyond to day"

 

The Nigerian child of today, scarcely experiences the blissful innocence and joys of childhood, such as the pre-independence Nigerian Child did, before he is abandoned and thrown into the wreckage of humanity, that people our city slums, and economically deprived ghettos, where they grow to become adults overnight. But let’s take a step backward in time, and try to visualize the earliest beginnings of childhood, and follow the trail of parental cruelty that leads to child neglect.

 

What starts as fun between two lovers, or a serious pro creation business, between married couples, soon produces a jelly like mass of protoplasm, that gradually metamorphoses into a human, with a recognizable form, with protruding fingers and toes, and the breath of God pumping in and out of his barely developed lungs. But through the mercies of God, and as part of the wonders of creation, this tiny bundle of joy is born kicking and screaming, perhaps because he has a premonition of how wicked and unfriendly, the world truly is. Imagine, therefore, the inward fear and loneliness, which we are unable to see, in the heart of a newly born infant.

 

Only adoring love, pampering and untiring tenderness, can re assure him that he’s truly welcome. And make no mistake, all infant children of the same age, are the same the world over – they can feel the difference between a loving parent and an indifferent parent riches or education have nothing to do with it. The "parent family" is his entire universe, from which he experiences the earliest intimations of love, and mortality. And before we scream at a child, that he is ungrateful, because like Oliver Twist, he asks for more than we can afford (he has no knowledge of the financial limitations of his parents) let us remember that no child ever asks to be born, so he never really owes any obligations to his parents, save that of reciprocal love and filial obedience.

 

He has no inkling of the destiny that awaits him/her only knows that his parents are there for him – they are his first intimation of a God, "who giveth us all". When we rock the comfort of this cozy universe prematurely and rudely, we shatter his worldview, and unseen hate and anger, begins to form and coagulate in his heart. He is unlikely, ever, to forget any experience of cruelty and loneliness he suffers as a child, because he is at an impressionable age when his brain acts like a magnet, holding fast to every sensation –bad or good. Now, in the midst of this emotional turmoil, imagine or try to visualize the plight of the "motherless child" or the child orphan.

 

Feeling lost and lonely, does not exactly capture the totality of the child’s emotional isolation, which at the very least, is the inward equivalent of a physical "desert island". He is emotionally adrift, a long way from "home"– rootless.

 

In civilized societies, childcare is a tripartite joint enterprise, involving parents, teachers and the state. The Nigerian child is not different from any others worldwide, he is part of the universal brotherhood of children, with similar hopes for the full enjoyment of life, and the fulfillment of his destiny. We cannot expect to rear "innocent" children, in a deprived world it is the same world, which we have created for ourselves, in which the child will grow and learn the tricks of survival. There are not two worlds or two moral standards; there is only one world, one moral standard and one God.

 

The flawed foundation of a child’s childhood, is often erected on the scaffolding of his parent’s own inadequacies and foibles. These must gradually be cleared away from the child’s path of life, before he can see the world’s stark naked truths. Humility, and a lack of intellectual conceit, are a parent’s most enduring legacy to a child; and a love so strong, that can allow them to set the child free, to pursue his own destiny.

 

In our generation, the romantic childhood, which many of today’s adults experienced, is now a much more attenuated affair. The spontaneity and jollity of family togetherness, is largely gone and now, children have no memory of a bygone, "golden era" to speak of, no nostalgia of a happy life, that once was, and no family tradition subsists! There was a time, in our various communities, when every child was every mother’s child, and every aunt was every mother’s assistant "disciplinarian", of any wayward child. Today the cry is, "To your tents O Israel", and nobody wants to bear the burden, of caring for another person’s child.

 

Against the background of our peculiar "Nigerian factor", let us now consider for a moment, the plight of motherless children, or orphaned children, or even those children who are born out of wedlock, and are disowned by one of the parents, because he or she is ashamed and embarrassed by the consequences of their extramarital affair.

 

And then finally, let’s consider those children who are made the unwitting victims of failed marriages, and are made to suffer "double jeopardy", when their father decides to punish them for the sins of their mothers, and thereby consign them to a life of deprivation and economic hardship. All of the above, are invariably, the lot of the Nigerian child, in our fractured society.

 

At the other end of the spectrum, there is the Nigerian child whose life has been blighted, ab initio, by being born into wealth, most of which will be found, on close scrutiny, to be of questionable origin. These are the sorts of children, that doting parents have unwisely and prematurely spoiled, by providing them with adult comforts, which when the children get used to, become an obsession; and many of them, end up as spoilt brats or social monsters, in their adolescent years. Rich parents, ought therefore, to be careful of the kinds of gifts they pamper their children with, particularly if the motive is to set them apart, from the children of the "hoi poloi" next door.

 

Once parents set the imagination of their children alight with the fire of luxury, and conspicuous consumption, like for instance, providing a mere child of 10, with a first class ticket to London, as a birthday treat, (because "I can afford it") such a parent is wittingly or unwittingly, sowing the seeds of future destruction, of that child. He will likely, thereafter, seek to maintain that highflying lifestyle, and if frustrated, steal or kill, if he must.

 

The same negative outcome is obtained, with providing a child, with more money than he needs, or knows how to spend –just to prove that his "rich daddy", can provide him with all things. Idle money soon finds uses for itself in drugs, drinking, debauchery etc, and when that source dries up in adult life, a replenishment is found by stealing and murder, and then parents are wont to lament, "where did we go wrong, we gave him everything any child could desire" True, but you gave him more than he needed, or could handle – there’s the rub!

 

The children "went bad", because we gratuitously led them into spendthrift ways. Parental discipline, by exemplifying a spirit of self-denial, non self aggrandizement the will to refrain from desiring more than is strictly necessary  is the best moral up-bringing a child needs; what you sow in a child, is what you reap in his adulthood.

 

This is the quagmire predicament in which, on average, the Nigerian child finds himself. But perhaps now, things are about to change for him and the global village of children, born into a world of neglect, cruelty and exploitation. The World’s Children Summit for the amelioration of the lot of the child, and the proclamation of the inalienable rights of children, including human, economic and habitat rights will take place when the world’s Heads of State, meet next week in New York at the United Nations.

 

For us here in Nigeria, it was re-assuring, and gratifying, to watch the President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo swear the Oath of Allegiance, a week or so ago, to uphold, protect and defend the rights of the Nigerian child. But I dare say, that more than a Presidential oath of allegiance, will be needed to salvage the destiny of the Nigerian child, from the present hell hole into which it has been plunged.

 

It will require, a priori, the reconstitution and restoration of the family, as the nucleus of our national effort to respect the Nigerian child, and see him for what he is, and as described by Wordsworth: "the child is the father of the man". More so, as many Nigerian parents, have inherent moral and ethical defects of their own; perhaps that is why Juvenal satirically observed that, "A child is owed the greatest respect; if you ever have something disgraceful in mind, don’t ignore your son’s tender years".

 

Whatever else, we may do or not do, under the new dispensation, emanating from the UN World’s Children Summit, we must not:

 

In addition, child labour, in whatever shape or form, should henceforth be declared illegal, with appropriate sanctions attached. Also, no child, who is in attendance at school, should ever be allowed to go home unfed every child should be guaranteed one balanced meal every day at school.

 

To meet the cost, the Education Tax Fund should go up by one per cent. And finally, every State of the Federation should, compulsorily, be required to establish at least one well endowed orphanage. And if it does not already have a Department of Social Services, it should establish one immediately, to among other functions, administer the State’s orphanage centre.

 

Children of a broken marriage deserve special consideration, and it would do no harm, if the Law makers were to review, the Divorce Law, in view of the unconscionably long period, of the war of emotional attrition, that follows divorce proceedings at the present time. A maximum period of two three years, should be sufficient in which to determine, that a marriage has irrevocably broken-down. It should not be the duty of a judge, to try to fix and re-launch marriages that are broken beyond repair. While this siege is prolonged, year on year, it is the children that suffer most.

 

The health of the Nigerian child, should no longer be compromised. Accordingly, every State should, compulsorily, be required to establish an ultramodern, and well equipped Specialist Children’s Hospital, with emphasis on prenatal and postnatal care, and nutrition. Lack of funds, can no longer be accepted, as an extenuating plea.

 

However, in the end, what would prove most beneficial to the Nigerian child, is the synergy of all these programs, involving the tripartite efforts of the parents and family, the schools and the State itself. But above all else, let us not kill the childhood dreams and hopes that are the prerogative of every child including the Nigerian child. And, lest we forget, each child must be enabled to follow his dreams.

 

"There is always one moment in childhood, when the door opens and lets the future in"

 

December 2001