HAPPY New Week, dear friends! The holiday and long weekend have come gradually to a halt and we are all happy for it. We thank God for the Sallah break, then the Independence Day holiday. They enabled us to unwind, to spend quality time with family and to extend hands of fellowship to others, particularly the less privileged. I was invited to join the BETHSHAN Youth Organisation, in collaboration with the Church of God Mission International (Missions Outreach) to visit the Edo State Remand Home, at Welfare Road, Ugbekun Quarters, Edo state and share love with the residents or inmates of the home, comprising mainly of young persons, small children and teens.
The outing was a follow up of the birthday celebration of the President, BETHSHAN Youth Organisation and Human and Social Rights crusader, Rev. Humphrey Arheghan who had on the previous Saturday, 19th September, celebrated his birthday with the inmates amidst funfair. He told me: “This second outing is an outcome of that birthday visit. It is in meeting with the needs of these children which stared at us starkly in the face during that birthday visit”. So the BETHSHAN Youth Organisation mobilised a team of Volunteer medics – doctors, pharmacists, public healthcare providers, specialized nurses and other caregivers and they all converged in the Remand Home yesterday to render good-spirited humanitarian services through quality healthcare, including the assessment and treatment of various forms of contagions, skin and other diseases and infections, provision of quality drugs, toiletries and sanitary pads. It was a beautiful outing and u could see how this modest show of love and philanthropy rubbed off positively on these young ones. Their eyes dazzled with glimmers of hope, with renewed vigour and sense of belonging. For us, the women on the team, including Volunteers from the Public Health Sector, we managed to suppress our emotions and put our maternal instinct under rein at the sight of very young, tender, nay, fragile-looking six-and seven-year olds who could have been our children, anybody’s children! It was a pathetic sight seeing these little ones who could have been in the comfort of their homes, tucked away in the protective warmth of clean bed sheets and in the comforting and assuring aura and safety of family bonds, having now to grow in an environment which, to say the very least, is far from being hospitable, a clear departure from home, no matter anyone’s viewpoint of home! We contained our emotions when we saw how badly in need of succour through relief materials these inmates were, how far estranged from family circles they were, how their faces lighted up and their spirits glowed at the mere sight of toothpaste and brush! We gulped down bile when the teen girls jumped up at sighting sanitary pads, pants and towels! “We held back tears when we gave a young girl access to communicate with the outside world and speak to anyone she wanted through our mobile phones, and pronto, she excitedly dialed a number she had kept since she finished secondary school in 2012; it was a mixed grill of joy and pain when she heard that her best friend in secondary school was already a 200level undergraduate of the University of Benin while she herself was an inmate of a Remand Home in the opposite direction of the same city! Her tears only helped us to assuage her feelings and assure her that it was not how far but how well! That her freedom depended to a large extent on how she was willing to bend to the rules of rehabilitation and turn a new leaf. We created a picturesque of the ‘prison to presidency’ philosophy in her mind’s eye and she was happy again!” said one of the volunteers. That young girl’s tears also brought to mind the snail-crawling system of justice administration in Nigeria and the need for a total overhaul of the judicial system which has not only affected the progress of already made individuals and corporate entities but also stalling the growth of the future generation. These young ones were brought down because of misdemenours ranging from truancy and aiding and abetting adults in the commission of one offense or the other; some were even directly involved in the commission of acts that were criminal in nature, either independently or as accessories; when most of the adults extricated themselves through their connections, these children are often forgotten in the mad circle of unfortunate events. Some of them would attain the constitutional age of 18 to have their case files open for determination; some of them were kept for corrective measures, but how forthcoming were the corrections coming?
According to the Volunteer Public Health Nurse, Monica Osifo who was in charge of medically assessing the inmates and making referrals/recommendations/prescriptions to the standby drug dispensary during the visit: “it should not just be about keeping these children in perpetual remand, it is also key for them to be constantly reminded of and enlightened on why they were put in remand and the implications of such actions on their future. They need to be properly rehabilitated, reintegrated into the mainstream of society. All hands must be on deck!”. She further noted that the children presented with various ailments, including contagious skin and other infections. At a point in the treatment, the drug dispensary had to run to town to get from its medistore of drugs on reserve! The event also offered a platform for the organisers to critically consider the wholistic needs of the Remand Home and its inmates with a view to putting them in the front burner of workable actions. “We have been told they need a bus to convey them to court when their cases come up for hearing. We will liaise with government thru the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in that regard” says Rev. Arheghan.
Another Volunteer Nurse, Mo Akele, with her partner in BETHSHAN, Osas Osarumen both called on well-meaning individuals and corporate organisations to come to the aid of the inmates. “They need all the basic amenities of life. The environment itself is overdue for overhauling; they need better living conditions; they need food, clothing, medicals and all the bare necessities of life” they enthused. For Rev. Osagie, the man in charge of Missions in CGMi, the event was just a beginning of greater services ahead, a continuation of a promise.
“This is a promise that must be kept; the promise made by Rev. Humphrey Arheghan during his birthday celebration the previous Saturday. We are here with him in keeping with the promise he made to always partner with the Home. During the birthday we saw to their physical needs, ate and drank with them and today, we are continuing that gesture by trying to meet their health needs, treat them, give them medications and toiletries. It is also in meeting their spiritual needs – harvesting them for Christ as part of the soul-winning mandate given by Christ Himself”. Would this gesture be sustained? Rev Osagie expressed hope of its sustenance but called on others to assist government in carrying out this social corporate responsibility. “As it is, the arms of government have become overstretched.
We need people and organisations with humanity in their hearts to come to the aid of government to see to the survival of this institution and the residents therein” Also hammering on the seeming neglect of the structures, Rev Arheghan said the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, had started work on the reconstruction of the Remand Home and appeared to have discontinued with it having only touched the common room in a few places.
“It is imperative to revisit this project, for us to find out why it appears to have been abandoned by the NDDC. Those who live here are humans and they need to be properly sheltered, that is one of the basic needs of humans.”
He stated with a note of finality.