The United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, has sort the support of celebrities to drive home the course of Nigerian children and be their mouth piece being the most vulnerable and abandoned in the society.
Introducing the celebrities, Kate Henshaw, Alli Nuhu, Cobhams Asquo and Waje as champions, the UNICEF representative, Nigeria, Cristian Munduate, described them as Nigeria powerful women and men who are the champions from their arts and creativity and have been a positive role model for thousands of people in Nigeria.
” We occasionally meet the individuals who have the authority and strength to help make changes in terms of the garrity of children rights and basic social right like health, education nutrition among others “. – Munduate
” That important personalities are not found everywhere so that is why we feel very delighted that we have a lot of expectations that all of us can build together, a dream that has to become a reality a vision and a reality and transform into concrete results for the country ” She says
According to her, they can make very tangible impact to ensure every Nigerian child has access to basic services. Mainly those children that are far behind and far away because of geographical areas, poverty, inaccessibility to drinking water, insecurity, which is one of the daily challenges in the country.
” Prioritizing for children is prioritizing for the country, right ? If you don’t prioritize for children, you are not prioritizing for the country and for all the people of the country, this is a message that has to come strongly against the vulnerabilities that the children have and the huge aggressions against children, so the message has to be, ” has to stop “. this has to change and it can change ” Munduate
One of the celebreties, Kate Henshaw an Actress, noted, ” if you do not prioritize children, you don’t prioritize anyone, how then do you determine succession? If you don’t take care of children, they will be wiped out, and there will be nobody literally left. children are so vulnerable, especially in Nigeria “.
According to her, children need special care, she gives birth to hope, to her aspirations, the dreams, and all the energy she wants to pour in the child to become someone better than she is. No country should discard, or use as toys to be played with, not given room to grow, to actualize their potential.
” In 2023, Nigeria needs to be more intentional about child education, nutrition, health, the environment in which they are raised, children in hard-to-reach areas, where there are no roads, government should make provisions for them, adding that, monitoring immunization vaccine, there are a lot of barriers such as tribe and religion, nothing that the mindset of people need to change “. Kate
Henshaw urged the media to disseminate right information to challenge public servants and hold them accountable for Nigeria to take it’s pride of place in the committee of nations and not just playing itself as the Giant of Africa, only to see that everyone is dwarves.
” I will not stop speaking. I don’t have to be paid. It bothers me that things are this way in the 21st century, our children cannot compete. If you don’t have money, your child is not going anywhere. You just need to go to one community school somewhere.
I worked with Oando foundation to renovate a school.
It was a poultry pen, that’s where the children were. A poultry pen! Open! Snakes will come, no toilet there and now, there’s a school there. We’ve built it in the community, and now, it’s over to you to make sure you maintain it.
Imagine that that area did not get the eyes of Oando foundation, or an organisation, that’s how they would be. And how productive will they be when they grow up ? It’s a short time you have to influence their lives; zero to five years. Once they’re grown, the mindset is there. You can’t change an adult, it’s children in their formative years, giving them the right nutrition, so their brains develop properly, giving them good health care and making them live in an environment where there are no mosquitoes, all these things, building blocks to make them become better human beings…
and she quotes ” Let us have a world of ordinary people, living the way God wants us to live.”.
If we have a life of ordinary people, extraordinary things will happen to all of us, not just the children “. Kate
And, Alli Nuhu, a Nigerian Actor, said in most streets in Northern Nigeria, children walk around, begging, Some look starved, most don’t have access to education, and this is a problem.
He noted that in Islam, it is the right of the child, to be provided for, expressing dismay seeing children roam around carelessly, and not taken care of.
” Being brought on board to do this, I want to step it down from my own area, that’s up north. To step it down and communicate it with people in my local language, because most people don’t understand the message when they get to hear or see it in English. So, it is very important to step it down from that end, get to partner with the clergy men there, because people listen to clergy men very well in Northern Nigeria, get to meet parents, talk to them, maybe have Town Hall meetings, do some skills, and pass the message across all sorts of platforms, to make people understand that it is very important to take care of, and protect the child, and make sure that those children are not vulnerable to negative things in the society “. Nuhu
He stressed that children become vulnerable because parents let them lose, not concerned about them, because they have many children, and not their responsibility to cater for the children noting that it is one of the reasons he is excited about the initiative.
” I am open to any sort of collaboration that will make this process a positive one, that will benefit the children, and the country at large “. Nuhu
Aituaje Iruobe popularly known as Waje on stage, another Nigerian Musician explains, Nigeria love a very good collaborative effort so it will be beautiful to collaborate because it is an individual decision and come to together to collaborate.
” so our personal life and our work individually will definitely shine the message but we also see the power in collaboration, “its says one we chase one power , two we chase two power “. Waje
Cobhams Asquo, also a Nigerian Musician, believe that ignorant played a major role on issues that concerns children adding that as a musician everything that had been pushed out from the beginning of their career to date has been awesome and they are strong content of character.
” I know people push out songs that are terrible, I have done music with Simi that speaks with all ramification, speak to politics. there is a reason why UNICEF chose us, UNICEF Nigerian is working with us because it is what we represent “You can’t control what everyone is doing, what you can do is you can bring together a group of people who have chosen to do good, who have a track record and they should give them what they want, the thing that Will amplifier them above the noise hopefully and you can make a difference, that is very important “. Cobhams