SARAKI CELEBRATES CHILDREN’S DAY WITH IDPs IN BENUE
“The condition of children caught in conflicts, many of whom we see here today, is particularly challenging, but the nation must never resign itself to living with this problem. This cannot become the new normal.
“Beyond millions of children in the North East who have missed out on education and vital social support for many years, there are others being deprived daily of parental care, development and security in many parts of the country. The fate of the Nigerian child today should spur all leaders into action, to bring an end to conflicts that make victims of the most vulnerable among us’.
“We need to rediscover the vision that emplaces the young as the centre piece of national development and all endeavours. A nation that does not invest in its young by protecting it, investing in its health and education and skills and hope –or building economy that should make it productive – is doomed’.
“Conflicts that make women and children prime targets, sap the national energy needed to resolve them. Every adult who is confined to IDP camps represents a waste of productive resource, and resources spent on running the camps are regretfully diverted from vital investments in human capital and infrastructure’.
“Internally displaced persons are taken out of productive circles and activities, and they risk becoming permanently dependent. Rebuilding lives and communities become more challenging and costly the longer the conflicts last and occupy more space in our lives.
“I appeal to us all to use this National Children’s Day to intensify efforts at finding lasting solutions to conflicts which give rise to camps such as this one. I strongly believe we can find these solutions; and that military and police presence and activities and IDP camps are not the only solutions we need,” he said.
The Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, thanked Saraki for the visit and the National Assembly for approving more funding security agencies and also thanked President Muhammadu Buhari, for approving a full military operation in the state which has so far brought relative calm and peace to troubled areas.
