Observing National Children’s Day is a noble idea. Its proponents deserve commendation for domesticating a global tradition that seeks to celebrate children and bring issues about their well-being to the fore. Following its incorporation in the early 60s, federal, state and local governments have yearly enacted activities affirming that there remains an enduring space for youngsters in the everyday grind of national business. Many citizens of the older generation will nostalgically recall colourful march-pasts, visits to Government Houses, mock plays depicting little soldiers, doctors, pilots, bankers, engineers, etc., and occasional feastings.
 
Despite challenges with speedy onboarding and rallying of its federal entities, Nigeria has applaudably hopped onto the wagon of global consciousness to improve the welfare of its children. On the heels of the November 20, 1959, adoption of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child in a unanimous vote by the United Nations General Assembly, and the November 20, 1989, adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the country today boasts of vital legislations. These include the Child Rights Act 2003, a legal framework to protect children’s rights and ensure their well-being, development, and protection from abuse and exploitation; and the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act 2015.

President Bola Tinubu recently launched the National Action Plan on Ending Violence Against Children. And on the 2025 Children’s Day, themed ‘Stand Up, Speak Up: Building a Bullying-Free Generation,’ the President’s speech disclosed his government’s bid to review the aforementioned Acts to expand the scope of protection, strengthen their provisions, close implementation gaps, and ensure nationwide enforcement. A big up to Mr. President! But the desire will come to nought if it is not marshalled into practical reality.
 
Away from the din of the Nigerian child, let it be asked: Do Nigerian children in 2025 share in the hopes, welfare, and social protection their parents and grandparents relished and took for granted at the dawn of Independence in 1960? Is the Nigerian government, as it currently functions, presenting today’s adolescents with sincere optimism that they will ever partake of those benefits 65 years on?
 
“The grizzly bear is huge and wild. He has devoured the infant child. The infant child is not aware it has been eaten by the bear,” writes the English classical scholar, Alfred Edward Housman, in his poem Infant Innocence. While the rhyme may lend itself to varied interpretations, it is a fitting metaphor for Nigeria’s worsening decline in fortune post-Independence. The ferocious’ grizzly’ is the nation’s inept, corrupt, and ideologically bereft leadership. The ‘infant child’ is the millions of children celebrated on May 27 yearly. Sadly, while Housman’s beast was content to make do with a physical babe, the country’s leadership appears to gobble them up even before they are born.
 
Before their first kick in the belly or breathing cry, resources that should provide for their educational infrastructure have been mansioned in highbrow estates. Funds that should enhance the qualities of their teachers have been redeployed as estacodes and security votes. The health and social facilities that should ensure their rounded growth and development have been converted into exotic official cars, perks, and the so-called constituency allocations. The several institutions that should guarantee their protection have been dwarfed by untouchable individuals.
 
Nigeria is estimated to have the largest number of out-of-school children globally, approximately 18.3 million. This figure, unfortunately, should not be expected to recline amid the wave of insecurity currently rocking the country. Since the April 2014 Chibok school abductions, several educational institutions have witnessed the scourge of the menace.

A 2023 report by Save the Children indicates that 70 incidents of attacks on education were recorded between February 2014 and December 2022 across Nigeria. During the period, a total of 1,683 learners were kidnapped; 184 learners were killed in schools or following kidnapping from schools or on their way to/from schools by criminals; 60 teachers and other school workers were kidnapped; 14 teachers and other school workers were killed; and 25 school buildings were destroyed.

Yet, insecurity is just one of the many hurdles militating against the future of the Nigerian child. What need we say of parental delinquency, bizarre role models like the sort who find weird humour in social media postings about getting in bed with minors, child labour, high cost of education, baby factories, and others?
 
There’s no doubt that Nigeria is still peopled by many citizens who genuinely care about the welfare and the future of the country’s children. These should undauntedly keep the boat sailing. A worrying backdrop, however, is the concern that the commemoration might have slipped into a spiritless routine where presidents, governors, ministers, commissioners, their wives, and others put up a grand show, score political points and vantage photoshoots, while the lots of the little ones continue to depreciate yearly.

The National Children’s Day should not be a mockery of the fate of juniors. It should never be akin to consciously or unconsciously withholding via the right hand immediate governmental actions that could bring remarkable shine to their prospects, while pacifying with the left, and wishing them a blissful tomorrow. Neither should it ever be a leadership tasked with feeding nurslings, but instead turns the bottle towards the lips of self-aggrandisement.
 
Perhaps, it is time for a redefinition of National Children’s Day. Children’s Day is not the 27th day of May. Children’s Day is every day. Everyday Nigeria’s security operatives make honest and proven pushbacks against Boko Haram, bandits, and kidnappers; everyday the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, and others, secure convictions, and criminals are put behind bars; everyday human traffickers and baby factory operators are busted; everyday the courts rule in favour of justice over vain legal technicalities — that is Children’s Day.