Some of the children
Abuja, Nigeria's Federal Capital Territory, is ordinarily a city of splendour.
Many of its inhabitants are powerful and stupendously rich. But for its
under-performing social facilities, the nation’s capital would compete
favourably with an average European city.
In spite of its grandeur, some
unfortunate children are living in squalor. Caught in the web of
poverty, which is foisted on them by unfriendly policies and corruption
among the nation’s leaders, these kids are left with no choice than to
go to the streets to fend for themselves. Consequently, child labour and
abuse have become the order of the day in Abuja.
These children are involved in various
forms of businesses such as shoe making, carpentry, vulcanising,
domestic service, cart-pushing and hawking.
In spite of the efforts of the
authorities to tackle the problem, experts say the desired results have
yet to be visible owing to the near absence of an effective social
safety programme.
While some of these under-aged
children, owing to the fear of being arrested by the Abuja
Environmental Protection Board, have now relocated to the markets
located in the suburbs such as Gwagwalada, Zuba, Utako, Dutse, Nyanya,
others still carry out their activities within the city centre.
For instance, a visit by our
correspondent to some of the markets located in the suburbs revealed
that apart from hawking, majority of them have now found a new mode of
making money: truck-pushing
At the popular Gwagwa Market in Deidei,
these underage children hire wheelbarrows for between N150 to N200 per
day. The wheel barrows, it was observed, were used to carry wares for
customers who patronised the market.
One of them who spoke to our correspondent said he had to do menial jobs because that was the only means of livelihood he had.
The 11-year-old boy, who simply gave his
name as Yakubu, said he had been pushing wheel barrows for the past
three years. According to him, his parents could not afford to send
him to school; hence, he decided to help himself by doing menial jobs.
“When I’m not pushing trucks, I follow my father to the farm,” he added.
Yakubu said he always arrived in the market as early as 6 am everyday. So, he could hire a wheel barrow to perform his tasks.
“Anybody who cannot get here as early as
6 am would not get a wheelbarrow to hire because other people would
have rented them and this means he would not be able to work,” he said.
When asked how much he makes in a day, Yakubu responded that he realises between N500 and N800, depending on the patronage.
“I come here every day by 6 am and go
home by 7 in the evening. This is the only means for me to make some
money to take care of myself.”
Asked if he has the ambition of going to school, he replied, “Yes”, but quickly added: “There is no money for that now.”
Similarly, 13-year-old Esther hawks
sachet water, popularly called pure water — at the Wuse market for her
mother and claims she makes N700 per day. While Yakubu is not lucky to
be in school, Esther claimed to be a JSS 2 pupil. He said she hawks
water after school hours to assist her mother.
She however claimed to have been
arrested by officials of AEPB twice, adding that in both cases, her
elder sister secured her release after paying a fine of N5,000.
She said, “I came to Abuja from Makurdi
to stay with my aunty after the death of my parents in an accident in
2008. But since then, we have been struggling to survive.
“My aunty told me that life in Abuja is
expensive and that my brother and I would have to do menial jobs to
survive in order to have enough money to go to school.”
Esther’s story is not entirely different
from that of Ndubuisi. While Ndubuisi’s peers are in school and
battling academic work, he sweats it out hawking fruits at the Dutse
Market to make a living.
But speaking in an interview with our
correspondent on the level of poverty in the country, the
Director-General, Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research,
Prof. Isreal Taiwo, said that despite the positive growth rate recorded
by the economy, poverty rate and income inequality among Nigerians are
on the increase.
Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product has
been growing at an average of seven per cent over the last few years,
but Taiwo said a study conducted by the institute in 18 out of the 36
states of the federation, including Abuja, in 2012 showed that the
growth in GDP had not impacted positively on the lives of the people as
the poverty and inequality gap had increased.
He said, “The study covers the entire
country and we sampled 18 states out of 36 and we also sampled two local
governments in each of the states. And the study also included a survey
of the Federal Capital Territory.
“From the information collected, we
discovered that although the economy is growing, poverty is not reducing
and income inequality is also not reducing. That is the evidence that
we have and we cannot manipulate the evidence. What we can do is to
provide explanation as to why this is happening and the explanation that
we can give is that the benefit of growth is not spreading sufficiently
to the poor people.”
Asked why the impact of the GDP was not
being felt by the people, the NISER DG explained that instead of
developing safety net programmes for the people, the country had focused
more on “capital deepening and widening.”
He said, “We have been focusing on
improvements in investment both private and public but we need to
develop a technological base in the country, which, if developed, will
enhance our ability to produce, thus making the country to grow much
more faster.”
He also said the labour force
participation rate in Nigeria which, according to him, is the lowest
in the world, needed to be enhanced.
“Our labour force participation rate,
which is about 50 per cent, is one of the lowest in the world, needs to
be enhanced by bringing more people into the labour market.”
He added that the government needed to
play more roles in developing a safety net that would help to reduce
poverty in the country.
“There is a lot of programmes in the
system. These include the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment
programme, National Poverty Eradication Programme, but we don’t have
enough information about the poor people that need the programme and
this should be focused on,” he said.
The Minister of State, Federal Capital
Territory, Mrs. Olajumoke Akinjide, attests to the poverty situation in
the nation’s capital when she said that about 46.9 per cent of Abuja
residents earn less than N30, 000 monthly.
She said the figure was obtained from a
demographic household survey carried out by the Federal Capital
Territory Administration.
She said, “The FCT administration
recently carried out a demographic household survey to generate basic
date and information for purpose of planning and development of the FCT.
“We were able to ascertain that 72.11
per cent of the households earn below N100, 000 per month and that the
majority of the workers fall within the low income groups.
“About 46.9 per cent earn below N30, 000
per month. 19.77 per cent earn between N30, 000 and N50, 000 per month,
while about 5.44 per cent earn between N50, 000 and N100, 000 per
month. This means that only about 28 per cent above N100, 000 per month
in FCT.”
Child labour is the employment of
children in any type of work that deprives them of their childhood and
interferes with their ability to attend school regularly. In other
words, the act can be mentally, physically, socially or morally
dangerous and harmful.
This practice is considered
exploitative by many international organisations and nations across the
world prohibit child labour. But, while a rise in household incomes,
availability of schools and passage of child labour laws have led to a
reduction in the rate of the vice in developed countries, such cannot be
said of a developing country like Nigeria.
For instance, in 2010, Sub-Saharan
Africa is said to have had the highest incidence of child labour, with
several African countries having about 50 per cent of children between
5-14 years working.
According to the United States
Department of Labour, poverty is a major driver of child labour in
Nigeria. In its 2010 report, the USDL claimed Nigeria was witnessing the
worst forms of the problem, particularly in agriculture and domestic
service.
The United Nations Children Fund, also
in its report on Child Labour in Nigeria, revealed that a whopping 15
million children under the age of 14 were engaged in labour activities.
Apart from being exposed to dangerous
and unhealthy environments, these children, the report noted, carried
too much responsibility for their age.
While the report said about six million
children in Nigeria do not attend schools at all, it added that about
one million of them had been forced to drop out of school due to
poverty.
The National Bureau of Statistics in its
2010 poverty report gave credence to this when it said that about
112.519 million Nigerians, representing about 69 per cent of the
country’s total population, were poor.
According to the report, the North-West
and North-East geo-political zones accounted for the highest poverty
rates in the country with 77.7 per cent and 76.3 per cent respectively
in 2010 while the South-West geo-political zone recorded the lowest at
59.1 per cent.
Interestingly, the report said about 97
per cent of the population living in the Federal Capital Territory
agreed that they are indeed poor. But the situation, according to
findings, seems to be on the increase as the majority of underage
children have joined the labour force against their will.
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