The Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Abimbola Akeem Owoade I, has stated that a robust child protection system is a prerequisite for any nation aspiring to growth and development.

Oba Owoade stated that planning for development without an enforceable set of laws, policies, regulations and services across social sectors could only amount to a futile exercise.

Oba Owoade offered the admonition while addressing pupils from the Federal College of Education (Special) Basic School in Durbar, Oyo town.

The monarch said: “Children represent the future and ensuring their healthy growth and development ought to be a prime concern of all, adding that it is a fact that nations that experience prosperity are where family stability is jealously guarded.”

“To achieve global development goals, Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child provides for the protection of children in and out of the home. Similarly, Nigeria’s Child Rights Act of 2003 provides for the rights of children.

“This explains why, despite being regarded as precious gifts from God and best hope for the future, children are still subjected to abuses and neglect”.

Accompanied by Ayaba Abiwunmi Owoade, the Alaafin lamented that the fundamental rights of children are being encroached upon daily without appropriate sanction.

“This is so, not because we do not have laws and policies on child protection, but due to a lack of social consensus and political will to successfully implement laws and policies. It could be heartbreaking to read about inhuman and degrading treatment being meted out to Nigerian children, both at home and at the institutional level.

“In some schools, it is still usual to see children being subjected to all forms of corporal punishment. Child abuse also occurs at home when parents unduly yell, threaten, reject or ignore the child. It can be shocking to see the extent to which some parents curse their children. Some even fail to provide their children with basic needs, including adequate food, clothing, hygiene, and medical care or support.

“All these can lead to interference with the child’s normal social or psychological development, leaving the child with lifelong psychological scars. Also, sexual abuses, which include but are not limited to child marriage, are a form of child abuse that has become a scourge in our society. Cases abound where fathers, uncles, guardians, male teachers, clerics, among others, have sexually molested underage girls.

“Some engage in child abuse for ritual purposes, and most of the time this leads to mental disorder on the part of the abused child, with perpetrators escaping sanction. There is an extreme weakness of child protection systems in Nigeria, and more worrisome is that there seems to be no reprieve in sight for the victims as children’s rights advocates complain of weak child protection structures in the country”, he said.

Alaafin explained that the only way for citizens to break free from being prisoners of their historical geographical spaces, times, and the boundaries imposed by cultural languages and societies into which they were born is to completely revolutionise their historiography.

Oba Owoade said: ”The key for national reconstruction lies in accepting the past as a source of generation, as this will enable our present to merge with our past and further into an enlarged future. Only then can we really identify with what constitutes our real local resource base on which to build a virile, healthy future for ourselves and our descendants”.

Oba Owoade urged Nigerians to support and be patient with the present administration as it makes sincere and painstaking efforts to transform the country.

Commenting on the diminishing value system, he emphasised the role of the family in maintaining a stable and crime-free society, which he said cannot be overstated.

“The increasing rate of family marriage breakdown and its attendant effect on the children and the society at large has become a ticking time-bomb because it has given rise to an increase in criminal activities by the children of the broken homes. We must recognise the role of marriage in building a strong society, especially if we want to give children the best chance in life. What you learn from a very early age has a great deal to say about the person you will eventually become and the life you lead”.

The traditional value system of the Nigerian society, like most other African societies, he observed, is characterised by such enduring features as collectivism, loyalty to authority and community, truthfulness, honesty, hard work, tolerance, love for others, mutual harmony, and co-existence and identification of individuals with one another.

While urging the pupils to take their studies seriously to become responsible citizens in the future, Oba Owoade also advised the management of the school not to relent in providing adequate knowledge to the pupils with special needs.