By Abba – Eku Onyeka, Abuja
The President of Children of Africa Leadership and Value Development Initiative (CALDEV), Hon Bamidele Salami has charged governments at all levels to as a matter of importance and urgency ensure the implementation of the Child’s Act, which if done, according to him will go a long way for the children as the leaders of tomorrow and the nation at large in future.
Hon Salami, who is currently a member, House of Representatives made the call at the National Children’s Leadership Conference in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) organized recently by the Children of Africa Leadership Value Development Initiative (CALVDI), a Non Governmental Organization (NGO) he is the founder and the president of.
While making the call, he said Nigeria has all the laws, but regretted that the problem lies on implementation. He therefore observed with concern that the Child’s Right Act, has all it needs to protect the children and make them live meaningful life. The law, he went on is against children being out of school, children begging in the streets, children hawking, just as he accused the state governments of doing nothing about all these things, by prosecuting parents of such children.
Still pointing out the anomalies, he said that the National Commission for Out of School Children informed that they have picked about 23,000 children from the FCT streets and handed them over to the FCT Universal Basic Education Board (UBEB) for enrollment in schools. In Wuse and environs, according to him, children are seen begging, hawking, wiping car windscreens for car owners, among others. To tackle this once and for all, he suggested, there is the need to fund education properly by the government, make education free.
Certain cultures, he went on should be stopped, advising parents to encourage children to ask questions, avoid being shy. This if done, according to him, will enable them compete favourably at the global level.
Speaking on his event, and informing that books about what they are doing are with schools all over the federation and about 50,000 are with UBEC, he said that testimonies by participants previously will show that the children have known what true education is all about. True education, according to him isn’t ability to read and write, but ability to think deeply, be creative, collaborate and be able to go about problem – solving.
On the reason why they have picked on children, Honourable Bamidele Salami said that they picked on the children with the reason that are are the leaders of tomorrow and if they are not groomed, the future will not be bright for them and the generation on born. He regretted that attention parents and schools used to give children 20, 30 years ago are no more there, due to modernization.
According to him, if this isn’t stopped the result in the future will be adults who will not understand essence of leadership, essence of value, essence of communal leaving, among others, saying: “This is what we want to prevent.” The number of participants today is more than what we had last year, and we need more, although it requires more funding and we are hopeful that more corporate organizations contribute to this move,” even as he added that in future, they will be inviting children from countries of West African to participate.
Among the participants who spoke to journalists was Maxwell Anyanwu who came all the way from Lagos, said that the event will go a long way for the children.
The Chairman, House Committee on Youth Development, Martins Esin, hailed the initiative, believing that it will go a long way for the children and teenagers. Oron/Mbo/Okobo/Udung Uko/Urueoffong Oruko Federal Constituency of Akwa Ibom representative said self-discovery was an important part of the leadership journey.
The even was well participated by children from different states of the federation and a lot of people delivered seminars to that effect.
