900 child ‘soldiers’ freed in North East —UNICEF

A regional militia allied with Nigerian government forces freed on Friday almost 900 children it had used in the war against Boko Haram insurgents, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has said.

The move brought the total number of children freed to more than 1,700, a UNICEF statement said.

Non-state armed groups embroiled in the decade-long conflict against Boko Haram recruited more than 3,500 children between 2013 and 2017 in the North-East, according to UNICEF.

“(This) is a step in the right direction for the protection of children’s rights and must be recognised and encouraged. Children of northeast Nigeria have borne the brunt of this conflict. They have been used by armed groups in combatant and non-combatant roles and witnessed death, killing and violence,” UNICEF Nigeria chief, Mohamed Fall, said in the statement, referring to Friday’s release by the militia group, which works closely with the military to fight Boko Haram.

The militia group had committed in September 2017 to ending their use of children in the conflict. Last October, 833 were released by the group.

It is not clear how many children in total have been drawn into Nigerian armed groups, including Boko Haram, or how they have been recruited. Videos seen by Reuters show child soldiers rescued from Boko Haram demonstrating to Nigerian troops how they were trained to fight and shoot rifles.

Nigeria’s war against two terrorist groups, Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province, has left more than 30,000 people dead and displaced millions more, with the insurgencies showing little sign of ending.

Residents of northeast Nigeria formed the militia, called the Civilian Joint Task Force, to help take on Boko Haram, which arose from the same communities. Some credit the militia with making early headway against Boko Haram in urban areas, using its local knowledge to identify people affiliated with the militants, although also drawing allegations that it sometimes used its power to settle scores in localised feuds.

UNICEF’s work in the North-East has at times angered authorities. In December, the military briefly suspended the agency’s work amid allegations that UNICEF staff spied on behalf of militants in the restive region.

The northeast of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and biggest energy producer, is rife with abuses on both sides of the conflict – from the recruitment of children to extrajudicial killings and rapes, according to human rights groups.

• 3,500 children join Boko Haram

‘Poverty of the mind, not lack of resources, cause of Nigeria’s poverty’

The Child Protection Specialist of UNICEF, Sharon Oladiji, speaking during a two-day media dialogue on the Convention on the Rights of a Child (CRC) at 30 organised by the fund in Lagos, maintained that Nigeria’s chances of winning the war against extreme poverty lied more in its human resources than in her vast natural resources.

“It is not that the resources are not there that Nigeria is today the world poverty capital. But it is because we are not harnessing these resources, it is because we have been beseeched by a certain kind of poverty, the poverty of the mind.

“There is no local government in Nigeria where you will not find any natural resource to tap from, but we allow these things to lie fallow.

“If Nigeria can harness the agricultural resources she has alone, she will not only feed herself but will also feed all of Africa and the world.

“But when we see these things lying waste and we cannot do anything, is that not poverty of the mind?

“If you live in the environment where many people are poor, where children are not going to school and you get into a public office and you take all the money to yourself and launder some abroad, is that not poverty of the mind?

“Our problem lies in is our incapacity to fully realise our intellectual potential. We need to encourage our young people to use and realise their potential. We churn out millions of graduates every year each looking for jobs where there is none and not thinking of how to create jobs or what to do with their hands and minds. That is the poverty that has crippled Nigeria as a nation,” Oladiji stated.

According to the June 2018 World Poverty Clock data, Nigeria currently ranks top of the countries with the highest number of extremely poor people in the world, after India, which is seven times larger than Nigeria in population.

An estimated 86.9 million people, that is about 50 per cent of its population, are living under $1.90 per day.

Without any cogent poverty escape plan, this figure has been projected to rise as high as 120 million people living in extreme poverty in 2030 as Nigeria’s population grows to 263 million people, 150 million of which will be below the age of 25.

With an estimated GDP growth of 2.15 per cent per annum and a largely youth population the impact on employment and security among others will be drastic.

And according to Oladiji, children are the worst hit as Nigeria accounts for 40 per cent of new babies born in West Africa and 23 per cent of those born in sub-Saharan Africa.

Already, an estimated 6 million Nigerian children are chronically malnourished (stunted), while 2.5 million children in the country suffer from sever acute malnutrition.

With the expected population surge in the country and the rising indices of extreme poverty, more children are bound to suffer.

“This is why we need innovative thinkers, people who talk solutions, not problems; we need great minds, people with vision, not those with the get-rich-quick mindset; we need political leaders who are raised with the right values, we need men and women who go into marriages with plans to instill the right values in their children, who also plan before making babies. Getting Nigeria out of extreme poverty is possible,” Oladiji declared.