What hope for the Nigerian Child?

As the world and UNICEF celebrate 25 years of the child right, Nigeria must reflect on the future of its leaders of tomorrow by examining how they have fared these past few years.The Nigerian child is faced with many challenges ranging from the domestic front, healthcare, education and, recently, insurgencies that have, in so many […]

As the world and UNICEF celebrate 25 years of the child right, Nigeria must reflect on the future of its leaders of tomorrow by examining how they have fared these past few years.
The Nigerian child is faced with many challenges ranging from the domestic front, healthcare, education and, recently, insurgencies that have, in so many ways, sent the positive strides achieved over the past 25 years a notch back.
Health
Though some noticeable achievements have been made in the country’s health sector, Nigeria still accounts for the largest number of infant deaths in the world, either from vaccine preventable diseases or from complications from child birth or childhood diseases.
Polio
This is perhaps Nigeria’s greatest achievement, with only six cases recorded, a great improvement from the over 200 cases we had a year before. The executive director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Mohammed Ado, has said the country has increased its routine immunisation coverage to about 87% and, hopefully, the country will exit the list of polio endemic countries by 2014.
But there are still issues that need to be addressed including providing artificial limbs for those already paralysed, ensuring that all children are vaccinated from childhood diseases, especially those in war torn areas.
But with the withdrawal of donor funding due to alleged misappropriation, the Nigerian child is left at the mercy of the home front that needs to provide funds to bridge the gap.

Pneumonia
This is another childhood disease which kills one million children globally and 180,000 children in Nigeria, between the ages of zero and five years.
Though plans are underway to introduce the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, experts have raised concerns over the country’s ability to sustain the project once it is introduced in December 2014.
The project will cost Nigeria N56billion by 2020.
Malaria
This is the number one killer of children and pregnant women, with a child dying from malaria every 30 seconds. The national coordinator of the National Malaria Control Programme, Nnnena Ezeigwe, said Nigeria contributes 25 percent of the total malaria burden globally with those worst hit being children under five years and pregnant women.
She, however, said 50% of the malaria burden has been reduced due to the several interventions by partners and the government.
Children still die from many more childhood diseases apart from those mentioned.
 HIV/AIDS
Nigeria has the highest number of HIV/AIDS positive babies. According to the director general of National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), Professor John Idoko, about 60,000 babies are born positive of the disease.
Nigeria’s greatest challenge is implementing the Eliminating Mother to Child Transmission threatened by paucity of funds, non-availability of skilled birth attendees and failure of women to attend anti-natal care.
Water, sanitation and hygiene
A child living in 2012 was much more likely than a child in 1990 to have access to improved drinking water sources, rather than relying on surface water or other unimproved sources. But hundreds of millions of children still rely on drinking water sources that may be contaminated with faecal matter or chemical pollutants.
Although 1.9 billion people gained access to an improved form of sanitation between 1990 and 2012, 36 per cent of the world’s population had no access to improved sanitation facilities (toilets and latrines) in 2012, and 1 billion people are still practising open defecation.
Nutrition
The number of children under 5 years old who die each year has been reduced by nearly 50 per cent – from 12.7 million in 1990 to 6.3 million in 2013.
In 1990, 35 per cent of pregnant women did not see a skilled health provider even once before giving birth. By 2012, that proportion had been halved to 17 per cent.
In 1990, 57 per cent of deliveries were attended by skilled health personnel, compared with 69 per cent in 2012.
The global proportion of infants who are exclusively breastfed hardly changed between 2000 and 2012, but improvements have been made in the least developed countries.
Deaths caused by measles were reduced by 80 per cent between 2000 and 2013 – largely due to high levels of immunisation coverage.
There has been considerable progress in reducing stunting since 1990. In 2012 on average, 25 out of every 100 children under five were stunted, compared with 40 out of every 100 in 1990.
Education
About 10.8 million children are out of schools, with more girls staying home to cater for their siblings while the boys go to schools.
With several interventions and advocacies to address the school issues, some improvements were noticed across states, with school enrollment increasing a notch.
But with the arrival of Boko Haram, most parents have withdrawn their female children from schools, and most schools have been shut due to threats from the insurgents.
Worst is the abduction of over 200 Chibok girls who are yet to be rescued and many more children still being targeted in schools, 40 boys were butchered when they resumed school in Yobe. The insurgency has now taken over towns, killed many in scores and left many children homeless, parentless and uncared for.
Domestic violence
Many children are molested and abused. The rate of abuse against children is on the increase. Children are sold and used for child labour, others are used for hawking and are faced with many dangerous hazards on the streets.
Rape
Abuse of children sexually is now the trend of the day even in Nigeria. Adults all over the country are taking advantage of children, and not getting the desired punishment they deserve.
These are only a few crimes against children. Many more exist that are not reported here.
Nigeria signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1991, and with UNICEF’s support, took the important step of domesticating the CRC into a national law: a draft Child’s Rights Bill was passed by the National Assembly in July 2003. Then-President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, assented to it in September 2003 and it was promulgated as the Child’s Rights Act 2003.
Today the Convention remains the most widely accepted human rights treaty in history. 194 states, including Nigeria, have ratified this agreement as of August 2014. The Convention changed the way children are viewed and treated – i.e., as human beings with a distinct set of rights instead of as passive objects of care and charity. It has changed the global conversation about children, and set the agenda to ensure children’s right to survival, development, protection and participation are realised.
An opinion piece written by the communication specialist of the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) Geoffrey Njoku, explains that the Act was informed by the mandate to consolidate all laws (including national and international laws) relating to children into a single piece of legislation that specified the rights and responsibilities of children, as well as the duties and obligations of government, parents and other authorities, organisations and bodies towards children.
His words: “The Act defines a child as one who has not attained the age of 18 years, and it categorically provides that such a child’s best interests shall remain paramount in all considerations. A child shall be given such protection and care as is necessary for his or her wellbeing, retaining the right to survival and development and to a name and nationality at birth.
“The states are expected to formally adopt and adapt the Act for domestication at the state Houses of Assembly as state laws. This is because issues of child rights protection are on the residual list of the Nigerian Constitution, giving states exclusive responsibility and jurisdiction to make laws relevant to their specific situations. State laws inimical to the rights of the child are also to be amended or annulled as may be required to conform to the Act and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.”
“Though Nigeria passed the Child’s Rights Act into law, only 24 states have both passed and given gubernatorial assent to child’s rights laws.
“Unfortunately, millions of children in 12 states in Nigeria still do not have the appropriate legal framework for the protection of their rights but still in those states that have passed the law, millions of children are not being cared for because the laws have not been fully implemented.”
As Nigeria plans to hold general elections in 2015, it is expected that issues affecting the right of children will be brought to the front burner.
In fact, according to Njoku, ahead of the polls, these pertinent questions must be asked: “Where are our children in the manifestoes of our political parties? Where is the blueprint to send 10.5 million of our children who roam the streets back to school, to finally eradicate polio, immunise every child, and provide one meal a day for every school child? Which political party will set a ten-year development agenda for children? That would be the Children’s people’s party and by extension the party of the people Nigeria.  The worth of a society is measured by how it treats its children.”