In Nigeria, the International Children’s Day is marked annually every May 27. This year, Ayodeji Ake, Sunday Ehigiator, and Ozulumba Chiamaka shine the spotlight on underaged street hawkers, who have swapped the classrooms for the streets in a bid to eke a living. Juxtaposing that narrative with the 2006 report on child labour by UNICEF Nigeria, which revealed that a staggering 15 million children under the age of 14 are working across Nigeria, this thus establishes a cycle of child rights violation that must be stopped at all costs 13-year-old Favour John and seven-year-old Gift John are siblings who on a daily basis, excluding Sundays, hawk groundnut the long distance of Ogba to Ikeja then to Oshodi, Lagos, to support their parent’s finances. If Lady Luck shines on them, their trays would have been empty by their 8pm closing time and if not, they have to at least sell to a reasonable minimum. Their living arrangements, as awkward as it sounds, probably works for t...
My deep appreciation goes to the family of Professor Sophie Bósèdé Olúwolé for inviting me to give this commemorative lecture on the life and times of Auntie Sophie. Permit me to begin with a personal tribute to the deceased. As human history has shown, there have always been, in every generation, unique individuals who speak in prophetic and visionary voices and with a high sense of urgency and moral authority, alerting the people of impending social danger and calling them to action. For example, Yorùbá mythical figures and ancestors such as Òsun, Ajé, and Móremí in Yorùbá ancient society are embodiments of this ideal. Indeed, in the not too distant past, women of the Southwestern region, such as Mrs. Fúnláyo Ransome Kútì, Mrs. Akíntúndé Ighodalo, and Chief Mrs. Victoria Oni, my own teacher in secondary school in Ile Olúji, who was as knowledgeable in English literature as she was in Mathematics, followed in the same lineage as the mythic ancestors. In our collective memory, t...
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