Children’s Day: We’ll continue working for your betterment, Buhari promises

•Kids demand strengthened security in schools
President Muhammadu Buhari, again, yesterday, assured Nigerian kids of his administration’s zeal to tirelessly work for a bright future for them.

In his goodwill message, yesterday, to celebrate the 2022 Children’s Day in Abuja, he said government would ensure that every child has access to education.

The President said he recognised the place of education in the development of every country, pledging his commitment to drastic significant reduction in the number of out-of-school children.

He acknowledged that while education of the Nigerian child would remain on the front burner for the current administration, other issues like healthcare, protection from harm, drugs, cultism, child trafficking and abuse, as well as domestic violence were equally receiving needed attention from government.

President Buhari stated that the Nigerian child deserves the best and a safe country where he or she could grow, make friends, interact and travel freely in addition to emerging as a successful leader in different fields of endeavour.

“With our investment in infrastructure, youth development, education, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), digital economy, culture, arts and entertainment in the last seven years, I believe we are laying a solid foundation for a better quality of life for future generations in the country,” the Nigerian leader enthused.

THIS came as a cross section of the children implored security agencies to beef up security in schools.

Regretting that over 7,000 girls and women had been subjected to sexual violence by non-state armed groups, the children spoke yesterday, in Abuja, at the end of a two-day capacity building training organised by Save the Children International (SCI) for state children’s parliaments and girl ambassadors from the implementing states of Benue, Borno, Cross River, Gombe, Jigawa, Katsina, Yobe and members of the Child Rights Advocacy Club of GJSS Gwagwalada, in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The Girl Child Champion of SCI, Etukudo Utibe Abasi, noted that the state of the Nigerian Girls Report revealed that the percentage of young females aged 15 to 19 years, currently married or in unions, was 22.2 per cent, while no male was in such unions, proving that early and forced child marriage affects quite a large number of women and girls.