After the death of the breadwinner of the family, Elugbaju’s life was thrown off balance. At some point, he hustled as a bus conductor in Ile-Ife. He always trekked from Arubidi to University of Ife to wash clothes for students and carry loads to survive. He was still strong and hasty then, but he had no one to run to. When the distress became unbearable, he left for Kaduna in 1988 to stay with one of his aunts.
At Kaduna, the aunt asked him to wait for her child to complete his primary school before he could continue his education. Elugbaju wept! He was already in JSS 2 before he left Ile-Ife. According to him, she even suggested that he should go learn mechanic, but he took no heed to the advice
“I was later enrolled at Sardauna Memorial College, Kaduna in 1991. But on March 1991 in JSS 2, I was diagnosed with measles. I left the school with the hope that I would come back healthy. I was first diagnosed with measles but we later found out that there were more to it. I was 19 then. My aunt with whom I was staying at Kaduna showed little concern and it became late to avert the defect. I was left to a bitter fate; I never thought a person of my age then could get blind. I made efforts to terminate my life. I drank battery water, but nothing happened to me. It was obvious that God needed me to stay alive,” he lamented.
Due to negligence on the part of his aunt, what appeared as mere illness later affected his eyes and eventually plunged him into a permanent night. He later sought comfort and shelter in a Celestial Church. It was the Church that sent him to the school of the blind in 1992.
Although Elubgaju is presently a reporter with Choice FM and a Pastor in the Highest Glory Global Mission, Ketu in Lagos, the sudden deaths of his parents threatened his future.
He discloses to The Guardian that the helpless state of the economy and high rate of poverty has made it almost impossible for children without parents to survive. “How do you expect someone that finds it hard to take care of his immediate family to take care of the offspring of his late brother or sister?” He asked. He says most of these children are now conductors, use as cheap labours and sell pure waters and other items on the streets of Lagos.
“The female children now see prostitution as an escape route. I am not using this as an excuse but these children can be so vulnerable because they have no one to guide or advise them. At the beginning, the family members would promise them heaven on earth. The ones in the orphanage homes are luckier apart from the psychological factor but nowhere can be like home, ” he says.
Elubaju wants the government to concentrate more on creating free education for these children and supervision of their foster parents. He also encourages the establishment of care centers to carter for vulnerable children, adding that there must be sincerity on the part of the government and her officials assigned for such. He insists that it should not be another case of the officials trying to enrich themselves at the expense of the children.
Elugbaju may be so lucky but many children have not been. Some children without parents have been thrown out of their homes, wandered round the streets of Lagos and have no where to go to. Also, some have suffered different kinds of sickness, including miserable deaths.
Tope from Badagry, Lagos State, used to live under Lagos bridge. He says he was with his grandmother before he decided to run away when he could not stomach the harsh treatment anymore. His parents are separated and the mother got re-married.
“I have lived under the bridge for a long time. I have been a bus conductor and I help people to carry loads too. Business is always bad some days but I neither do drugs nor steal. Though most Nigerians believe that people who sleep under the bridges are notorious, some of us are there because we have no place to call home,” he explaines.
Tope desires to set up a business but has no financial muscle, hoping, “probably, if I meet my father one day, he will help me.” He says he is unhappy with the ways he is living because he and his other homeless friends are exposed to arrest, sickness etc.
Another pathetic story was that of a blind entrepreneur, Anuoluwayinka Isaac. Tears packed his eyes as he recounts how he lost his sight to The Guardian. According to him, he was ten when he learnt that the man he had always called “father” was not his biological father.
Mr. Umaru who he identified as his guardian told him that shortly after his birth on March 10, 1975, his mother died mysteriously. His father abandoned him to a neighbour, promising to return. But he never did.
When Isaac got this news, it was hard to conceive. He admits that he assumed it was because Umaru was a polygamist and the burden was telling on him.
“Until I clocked 20, I still did not believe it. Though I had no relatives but God was merciful to me. Neighbors, passers-by and other compassionate people came to my rescue. I successfully went through primary and secondary school,” he reveals.
Narrating how he became blind, he says someone hurled a stick that struck him in the left eye during a tennis game.
“I didn’t know that anything serious was the matter until months later when I discovered that I couldn’t see well and that my right eye was affected too. I dropped out of school at SSS 3. I couldn’t write my WAEC that time at Eko Boys High School…”
However, the inability to get someone to sign his surgery papers at the Children General Hospital Mersse, Lagos, eventually led to a complete blindness. His guardian who had abandoned him since he was 10 refused to sign the papers.
“After a lot of diagnosis, I was to be placed on surgery, and my papers were to be signed by a member of my family. Mr. Umaru refused to sign the papers not because he didn’t have the money but because I wasn’t his son. ”
Despite the laudable efforts of mostly non-governmental organisation (NGOs) and religious bodies with a view to improving the situation of children without parental cares, recent findings have shown the need for a renewed sense of urgency.
It is very traumatizing when a child has nowhere to call home, says a final year female student of University of Lagos (UNILAG) who pleaded anonymity. She discloses that such kids are prone to abuse of every kind, ranging from psychological to sexual.
“I know of a woman that gave birth to a boy and died two days after. The husband is a polygamist, so he paid no attention to the baby. Since the little child still needed to feed on milk, he was put in care of a relative who gave birth almost at the same time. Instead of taking care of the infant, that relative fled with her baby. The child had to be sent to the motherless babies’ home,”
“Also, a friend used to live with his great grandmother and his great cousin but the cousin enslaved and starved him as punishment. It got bad to the extent that the cousin burnt his hand with a hot pressing iron. He got badly injured and since he was without care, the hand began to rot. He did not get any medical attention until a great aunt was compelled to take him with her,” she narrates.
Whenever the separation of children from their original family occurs, it is only ideal that alternative care arrangements should always be in the best interest of the child. Anything contrary to this poses a great threat to the child’s future.
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