Two girls, Blessing Adaeze Okeke, 16; and Chioma Okeke, 14; have reported their father to the police over his refusal to cater for their needs.
The elder Ms. Okeke had on the September 28 reported her father, whom she identified as Mr. Okeke, to the police at Igando, a Lagos suburb, saying that their father’s refusal to take care of her, her sister and three other siblings had turned them to street urchins.
“My mum died in April 2003, leaving a one week old baby. In 2005, my father got married to another woman. In 2007, my father chased me and my younger sister out of his house (in Igando) saying that we are witches and that we caused our step-sister to have convulsion. I called our neighbours to beg him to allow us stay in the house but he refused,” Ms. Okeke said.
She told NEXT, on Tuesday, that she started living in a church at Ajengunle with her younger sister who became a stammerer after their father sent them packing.
“We started living in the Christ Victory Sabbath Church at Ajengunle. We stayed there for four months and one of the church members helped me to get a job as a house help to one family at Maza Maza.
"I needed to write WAEC and there was no money, I went back to meet my dad but he refused to sponsor me despite the fact that he has the money. My sister became very angry and said my dad is just wicked because he is a landlord and also an importer of spare parts. That was when we went to report our dad to the police.”
Cordelia Nwaegwu, the girls’ aunt said her brother has refused the plea, from his entire family, to take care of his children.
“I am the sister to these girls’ father and when their mother died, I noticed that the children were suffering. I brought them to my house but my brother called the police to arrest me that I was a kidnapper that I took his children without his permission.
"The police even made me to write an undertaking that anytime my brother’s children came to me, I will not accept them,” she said.
Mrs. Nwaegwu said she took the girls home when she heard that they were sleeping in the church, and on the street.
“I could not bear it. I took them to my house for a while. I begged my brother that even if he will not accommodate the girls he should provide money for their school fees and their upkeep so that they will not end up as prostitutes but he refused saying that the children are witches,” Mrs. Nwaegwu said.
Ms. Okeke said an NGO called Project Alert, which campaigns against violence against women and girls has come to their aid.
“The NGO is trying their best but we want the police to make our father to cater for our needs and if he is not willing to do so, they should jail him,” she said.
The executive director of Project Alert, Josephine Effah-Chukwuma in a telephone interview, confirmed the girls’ story and stated that the girls where kept at the NGO’s shelter for a few days before they were taken, by the police, to the Juvenile and Welfare Centre, Alakara, Mushin, Lagos.
“Cases of abuse of women and young girls by their parents is very common and this is one of such. How can he accuse his own children of being witches?” Mrs. Effah-Chukwuma asked.
The spokesman of the Lagos State Police Command, Frank Mba said Mr. Okeke who hails from Imo State has been invited by the police severally.
“I have invited him to my office and he has not shown up. I have placed calls to his phones and we have not seen him,” said Mr. Mba.
“He must be made to pay for the upkeep of his children, they are his biological children and he has nowhere to push them [to],” Mrs. Effah-Chukwuma said.
Oluwakemi Oduntan, a partner at Jade & Stone Solicitors who spoke to NEXT on the issue said if the Child Welfare and Child Rights laws are properly implemented, cases of abuse and abdication of duties by parents will reduce.
She further stated that the lack of a comprehensive social welfare system in the country fosters the problem.
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