What is the value of a Nigerian child?

The Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ) released a report titled “Arrows of God: One of Nigeria’s biggest orphanages is trading babies for cash” last week. It is a report that should make every reasonable Nigerian worry.

Although it is not the first time that FIJ was led by the pioneer editor of cable.ng, Fisayo Soyombo, would expose the multi-layered decay in Nigeria; this report is particularly distressing.

Why so? It strikes at the country’s treatment of the most innocent and harmless species of all: the child. The piece is an uncomplimentary verdict on the country and its future viz-a viz the human beings it continues to bring into the world without measure.

The late South African leader Nelson Mandela said, “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than how it treats its children.” That makes absolute sense! The statement is sound not just because children, especially new-borns, are blameless; it is also apt because children do not ask to be born. They, therefore, deserve the care and nurture of the society whose citizens bring them forth. Nigeria fails to plan for and take care of its children, so the depth of the country’s deprivation is, in fact, evident in the situation of the child.

In the report with a 22-minute documentary accompanying it, FIJ reveals the outcome of a 19-month investigation into the operations of the Arrows of God Orphanage. At the end of the exercise, which took the party from Lagos State to a remote part of Anambra State, the orphanage handed a six-month-old baby girl to Soyombo and the co-investigator, who posed as his wife.

This single story reveals too many worrisome things about our dear country.
The first is the extent to which people would go to make money. Due to several reasons, chief of which is the ostentation of our leaders amid the suffocating poverty and lack in the country, everyone is desperate to make money. Usually, they are desperate for money to live the good life and taunt the less endowed.

A few days ago, I saw the video of a seven-year-old caught by his parents trying to become an internet fraudster, otherwise known as yahoo-yahoo. When someone told him that he might die in the process, he was reported to have said that he did not mind dying in pursuit of money. Imagine a seven-year-old with such money consciousness. Now, picture what 20 million such money-mongering children who are currently out of school would become and are capable of unleashing on society in a few years!

The police in Lagos recently arrested a young man and his mother for ritual killing. Who did they kill? This woman’s daughter! That is the sister of the young man. In his confession, the suspect said that their mother poisoned his sister so they could use her body parts for money rituals. After the girl’s death, the mother watched him have sex with the corpse as part of the ritual.

The illustrations above show that there are no limits to the desperation for money in Nigeria. Not age, status, or religion restricts people’s propensity for callousness when we speak about the craze for money.

In the case under discussion, for instance, the proprietor of the 25-year-old orphanage should be about 80 years old. Yet she was the one who first indicated that the “couple” would need to “buy” the baby. This woman is also a retired military officer and an ordained Christian minister.

And this brings us to the religious hypocrisy here. People wonder why the country is so sad, given how religious its people seem to be. If religion generally prescribes holiness, why do we have so much corruption, killing, and hate?

The answer is that religion is a survival strategy for many people. They mouth it and enjoy all the benefits of their proclamation but avoid committing to its requirements for righteousness.

The truth is that religion by itself is a mere form. It is only complete when the faithful adhere to the prescription of love for God and love for man found in literally all religions. Conforming to such tenets produces righteousness, which is said to uplift nations. Most people in our country pay lip service to religion and deploy it for the manipulation of unsuspecting compatriots.

For instance, if you read the intense prayer that ‘Reverend Lieutenant-Colonel D.C. Ogo (retired)’, President and Founder of Arrows of God, shared with the “buying” couple after they paid the asking sum of N2 million, you will see how people imagine that God can be mocked.

You also get the impression that everything is possible in Nigeria with money. Not just that, nearly everyone has a price, and you can get away with anything with the right sum.

From Lagos, where Soyombo started on his mission, he procured a marriage certificate with a woman he had no romantic relationship with, not to mention marriage plans. He sat in the comfort of his home when they brought his forged birth and mental health certificates for him and his “wife.”

At the Anambra State end, the signatures of Chief Magistrate 1, L.S.E. Uzuodu, and Chief Registrar Okoro Joy Obiageli of the Magistrate Court, Nnewi, appeared on an order granting parental rights to the undercover journalists. The document affirmed that the decision was reached after considering other factors, “including the oral testimonies of the parties concerned.” Mr Paul Runsewe and Mrs Chindinma Runsewe (the operational names adopted by the journalists) never appeared before the court.

A police report also attested that a Victoria Onoja Anita brought a baby to the police station on the afternoon of March 29, 2023, claiming she was jobless and couldn’t care for the baby. It is doubtful that this happened since Ogo had already assured the child-seeking couple that everything would be fine once the police and the judiciary got their “entitlement.”

With two million naira, a child that should only be given out for adoption on the strength of the state government’s approval was sold to people whose status this orphanage did not know.

Although they asked the couple to provide details and phone numbers of guarantors, including family members and the clergy who could attest to their character, this was just to fulfil all righteousness. The home did make any attempt to call. If they did, they would have discovered that all the names and phone numbers provided were non-existent!

But they didn’t care whether this couple wanted a child for trafficking or ritual killing. The only thing that matters is money; nothing else! These people make Nigeria appear like a huge criminal corporation.

Yet none of this would happen if government processes were more efficient. Here again, corruption and favouritism rear their heads. There are insinuations that sometimes when people apply to adopt children through the appropriate government channels, rather than treat the application on a first-come, first-served basis, those in charge sometimes consider the status of those applying.

However, in most instances, the system is just inefficient. The FIJ story gives the example of a woman who said the first response she got after two years of filing her application in 2017 was eventually getting a letter to adopt, which is just the beginning of another long process in 2021, five years after the initial application. The “adopting” couple themselves wrote an application for adoption to the Lagos State Ministry of Youth and Social Development. They got a text message acknowledging receipt of their application one month later and silence after that!

Overall, government inefficiencies stimulate the desperation that feeds people’s capacity for evil in Nigeria. As it concerns the adoption of children, for instance, if the government had an effective and transparent system that is not perpetual, families would not patronise criminals who do business out of the lives of children.

This is pretty much the situation in other spheres of life, and it is why Nigeria has become a massive rentier system where criminals thrive, but the upright get trampled. The argument about which of the government and governed foster evil in Nigeria is always on, but competent leadership is a prerequisite to sanity in any society.

Adedokun can be reached via @niranadedokun