The
Centre for Children’s Health Education, Orientation and Protection (CEE-HOPE), a
child’s right and development Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) has reacted
to the recent release of six school boys of the Lagos State Model College,
Igbonla, Epe.
In
a statement issued in Lagos, CEE-HOPE’s Executive Director, Betty Abah, said it
was a great relief that the boys (who were abducted from their school hostels) had
been brought back after 65 tortuous days in kidnappers’ den. ‘We can only
imagine the joy of family members whose loved ones had been held captive for
over two months. We congratulate the authorities and agencies who worked
assiduously for the release of these boys, most notably, the Federal
Government, Ondo State Government and the Nigerian Police Force,’ said Abah.
The
statement further asked the Lagos State Government to do more to ensure maximum
protection for its school children as against the current state of affairs
which it said has left children as easy preys and at the mercy of criminals. It
asserted that the Igbonla case was quite
avoidable given that a clear three-day notice was issued to the school by the
militants yet the abduction happened with apparent no resistance by any
security operatives, not to mention that abduction also took place in the same
school in October 2016. It called for the school authorities and security
operatives in the area to be questioned as to what really transpired.
‘Children
in Lagos State are currently endangered and the attitude of the state
government hasn’t helped matters. It took 10 traumatic days for the government
to address the parents of the boys and that was even after a protest to the
government house in Alausa. And the Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, who by law is
the Chief Security Officer of the state, would not talk to them. Even though
the victims are vulnerable young persons, the state government gave the parents
a cold shoulder saying it would not negotiate with criminals, and maintained a
lukewarm attitude to their boys’ plights until the Federal Government’s
intervention. They were also left to negotiate with the kidnappers, selling
property and borrowing huge sums in the process. All these send a gravely wrong
message to the rest of poor Lagosians in a progressively insecure atmosphere’,
it added.
The
statement also cited instances of ongoing rape, brutalization and multiple
killings in the Ikorodu area of the state by the rabid Badoo cult, with most of
the victims being women and girls; the recent rape to death of Obiamaka
Ngozichukwu Orakwe, a 14 year old girl in Abule-Ado area of the state. It asked
for stringent punishment for criminals to serve as deterrence.
‘The
present government of Lagos State must run government with a more humane face,
scale up its security apparatus and give the beleaguered population a sense of
belonging and security. Again, on Igbonla, besides ensuring comprehensive
medical and psychosocial treatment for the recently released boys, the state
government must compensate the parents to show that government can have a human
face and is not all about infrastructures,’ said Abah.
The
statement further added that kidnappers, ritualists and criminal arrested must
not only be given ‘media trials’ but be openly tried, sentenced and shamed as a
way of rescuing the state from the current grip of insecurity.
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