RECENTLY, the Lagos State Police Command arraigned four suspects for allegedly injecting two children aged 11 and 13 with substances to make their stomachs swell up and thereafter use them to solicit alms. The suspects, namely Uchenna Eze, Onyedikachukwu Isiala, Ikechukwu Kingsley and Smart Alasuomu, appeared before Justice Sikiru Adagun of the Apapa Magistrates’ Court, charged with conspiracy, placing and encouraging underage children in public places to beg for alms, deprivation of personal liberty and exploiting underage children. According to Benjamin Hundeyin, the Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, the suspects presented the children in road traffic as critically ill persons in order to obtain alms from motorists, but the ruse was uncovered when one of the victims reported the syndicate to the Ojudu Police Division. Indeed, some passers-by at the Kirikiri area of FESTAC, Lagos, reportedly saw one of the suspects applying an ointment on the protruded stomach of a girl in the early hours of the day.
During interrogation, Eze, the alleged leader of the syndicate, however insisted that the children were actually suffering from ailments, although he refused to disclose the nature of those ailments. He said: “They (children) are inside their village in Abakaliki (sic). So, when one of my aunts, Ngozi Chukwu, who is the founder of the foundation, saw other associations parading in Lagos, she knew these kinds of cases are in her village in Abakaliki and she went there and brought these ones (sic). The girls’ parents know that they are in Lagos and used as beggars to get money so that they can be treated or operated on because they are poor. Anybody who knows Abakaliki will know what I am saying. I have a sister like them; I can never do such a thing in my life.
“There is no one that we give medicine to make their stomach swell (sic). But we normally treat them. I have been doing this business since December 2020. The children used to see their families; one of them still went to see her parents last year, while the other girl returned this July. I can’t say the period these girls have been begging (sic), but the money raised from the begging is usually deposited in an account controlled by Ngozi Chukwu, who is the owner of the foundation. When it is time for the surgery, Dr. Ajayi will do it. He has operated on one patient and the boy is now in the village.” However, according to the police spokesman, “The few days that the children spent with the police, their stomachs came down. So, it was something that they (victims) were allegedly given regularly that was making their stomach to protrude. So, the more the protruded stomach shone with what they used in rubbing it, the more people would believe that the children had a very bad condition. The doctor (Dr. Ajayi) has been avoiding police invitation.” The doctor has since been arrested and the suspects remanded in Kirikiri.
As we noted in previous editorials, the Nigerian society has over time been plagued with the ugly spectre of people not caring a hoot about others as long as they make the so-called “fast bucks.” What makes the story under reference particularly galling is that the alleged crime of child abuse and child exploitation took place for a long time in broad daylight without any of the agencies of the Nigerian State, whether security or health-based, doing anything about it. Indeed, the alleged exploitation would in all probability have continued unabated were it not for the victim and patriotic citizens who reportedly brought the case to the attention of the police. It is a good thing that the suspects have been remanded in prison custody, but if what they are alleged to have done is true, then it is damning that they were able to perpetrate the crime with such brazen impunity.
To be sure, the suspects’ story sounds strange. If there were children afflicted by health challenges in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, the proper thing to do was to take them to hospital, or at least raise awareness about their plight so that publicly spirited individuals could come to their rescue and foot their hospital bills. The fact that the children were not only taken to Lagos State but used to solicit alms, with the proceeds paid into the account of the “founder of the foundation”, clearly points to an ulterior motive. If the children had protruding stomachs, by what magic did their bellies reduce in size while in police custody? Or did the police perform “tummy tuck” operation on them? In any case, if the purpose of the alms solicitation, bad as it was, was actually to get the children medical relief, then why not take them to hospital with the proceeds of their exploitation? Why not take them to hospital in Lagos? Or is it the case that their “ailments” can only be treated in Abakaliki? What is the role of Ngozi Chukwu, the “founder of the foundation” and the said Dr. Ajayi?
It is telling that one of the accused, Eze, even made it a point of duty to point out that the children were occasionally allowed to visit their parents, as if they were not supposed to. And then he also described the matter as “business” that he had been involved in. Children, like other members of society, have inalienable rights. Such rights must not be violated, let alone violated with impunity. That is where states across the country are domesticating the Child Rights Act passed by the National Assembly. Surely, parents releasing their children for the purposes of alms solicitation need to be exposed and punished. Their action amounts to criminal exploitation. Even where children have ailments, what they deserve is medical attention, not exploitation by their own parents for pecuniary gain. Parents have a duty to cater to the needs of their young children and not the other way round. Innocent children should not be thrown into the streets and callously exploited at a time they should be in school. Depriving children of basic education for pecuniary gain has to be a crime against humanity. It is abhorrent, repellent and utterly unconscionable. We condemn it unreservedly.
Beyond this, there is of course the salient question of the health of exploited children. If the children in this case were actually injected with chemicals, who knows the kind of effects such chemicals may already be having on their body system? There is a high probability that unless subjected to a comprehensive medical check-up, children who are so treated will suffer severe health crisis in future and become a burden to their parents, who admittedly do not even deserve to have them if they (parents) could treat them so shamefully.
We urge the police to carry out a thorough, dispassionate investigation and ensure that all of those implicated in this case have their day in court. Terrible as the story sounds, they are still presumed innocent under the law and must thus be afforded their constitutional reliefs. On their part, the Lagos State government and the Ebonyi State government need to take active interest in this case with a view to stopping child exploitation syndicates within their jurisdictions. They will be saving a lot of children by so doing.
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