‘Cabals frustrating fight against child trafficking’ ― Emeka Ejide

Former Director of Child Department in the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and Social Development, Chief Emeka Ejide, has raised the alarm over the nefarious activities of cabals which he said have impeded the fight against child trafficking in the country. He lamented that the said cabals are hellbent on frustrating every effort made by the government at all levels to stop child trafficking in the country.
Ejide made the lamentation shortly after he was presented with the Editors Leadership Award by the Guild of Indigenous Editors of Nigeria for his “excellent service while he served as director of child department.”
“The recognition of my services did not just start today” he remarked, but “this is the sixth award after my retirement in August 2014.”
“I often ask myself, so people were really taking notes? I never knew. This was because I was fighting a kind of low ranger battle. You see the war against human trafficking especially in the area of children is not a joke because we have cabals who have all it takes.”
“And we didn’t relent. Incidentally as a former director of child development, I was among the three directors at the federal level that formed the think-tank team and I said that my state must be the real light of the nation. And my state, Anambra, became the first state to implement the child’s right law to its letter.”
“In August 2008, we made sure that family courts were established in Anambra State. And because it was segregatory and discriminatory to have orphanages and motherless babies’ home; the first question is motherless? We all came from a woman. Fatherhood is social factor. And then the Child’s Right Act has deemed it appropriate that it should be children’s home and to make it part of what we all owe allegiance to, it has to become community children’s home because they are domiciled in the communities.”
“Again, we had a very vibrant children’s parliament. Today, all our former parliamentarians are doing wonderfully well in their various fields of endeavour. But I wouldn’t say that it is all full of roses. The only prayer we keep saying is that of continuity; continuity in its rightful sense. The children we had before, is not the children we are having now. Attention actually has dropped but we are praying that there would be redirection and pay more attention.”
“Children in Nigeria today account for more than fifty per cent of the nation’s population today. So if you have more than fifty per cent of your population fall under the age of eighteen, you can now see what the population is made of; you can now see attention you need to give our children. Therefore children’s budget needs to be increased. But what is happening now? We are not comparing neither are we evaluating but our children need more attention. This is because lack of directions breads social vices?
Earlier, the National President, Guild of Indigenous Editors of Nigeria, Tony C. Okwunebe, said that the body had deemed it important to recognize the awardee because of his landmark achievements in office especially as it affects the fight against child trafficking in Anambra State.
Okwunebe who led other members of the team, underscore that the implementation of the Child’s Right Law in Anambra State was made possible by the awardee and as such qualifies eminently to be bestowed with the coveted award.
He also explained that apart from the works of the team which majorly revolves around the media, the group, as part of its programme designed to affect the society positively, would establish special clinic for early detection and treatment of children with autism, as well as distribution of academic materials to them.