Africa: Nigerian Teens Wow Audience and Warn African Leaders

Johannesburg — Temidayo Israel Abdulai, who is known as Dayo, is just 16, but he has already set up his own non-governmental organisation.

Dayo is a schoolboy, but he is also the Deputy President of the Nigerian Children's Parliament and was a delegate at the United Nations' Special Session on Children which met in New York last May. He is also an accomplished and passionate public speaker.

Blessing David is a year older than Dayo. She is 17 and has also just finished school. Blessing works with another NGO, Child-to-Child Network, a voluntary children's organization, promoting, protecting and defending the rights of the child. Although she is a young woman, she has a steely determination and a gift of speaking with conviction.

This dynamic duo stole the show on Wednesday in Johannesburg at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). Blessing chaired what was called the 'children's side event' at the summit's Sandton Convention Centre. Dayo sat by her side and together they won over the audience. The session was entitled "Children: vital partners in globalization and earth preservation".

The Nigerian twosome pulled no punches, drawing applause, smiles and cheers from a mixed group of children, teenagers and adults. Along with other young delegates, Dayo and Blessing sent a direct and outspoken message to the one hundred world leaders expected in Johannesburg to endorse any agreement on sustainable development reached by negotiators in the next few days. That message was: Invest in your children. Consider the children in whatever decisions you take.

After their presentations, allAfrica.com's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton caught up with the popular teenagers, who were being embraced and congratulated like pop stars.

My name is Temidayo Israel Abdulai. I'm a student and I have just finished my school certificate (examinations). I am also a childhood activist, and I run an NGO called The General Action against the violation of human and children's rights in Nigeria.

I am Blessing David. I have just finished my school certificate to get into the university soon. I belong to Child-to-Child Network, a non-governmental organization, which deals with children's rights. We are into teaching children their rights, coupled with their responsibilities, and also we fight against child abuse and all forms of child neglect and exploitation.

You are two dynamic and passionate young Nigerians; you are delegates here in Johannesburg at the World Summit on Sustainable Development. So what exactly is your message to African leaders and other world leaders? What challenge do you throw out to them, Dayo?

My message firstly is that African leaders should learn to manage their resources. You don't have to go down to the developed countries, looking for their support and calling for their support. They keep on exploiting us. They have sold globalization to us and, with globalization, they keep on exploiting the developing countries. Let us manage the resources we have in Africa and be contented.

We, the children, we are enough resources for them to be happy. If they try to work with us, we can get on with it.

If you invest in we young people, if you can invest in we children, you will get the best strategy. Africa can learn to invest in its children, we are the future. We are not only the future, we are the present. If Africa can learn this, Africa will get to be the best place in the world and will become the hero of the world.

Blessing, are the African leaders, and other leaders, listening to young people like you?

That is what we are fighting for now. This summit is the only opportunity we have to speak with the whole world. I have met delegates from different countries and I only hope they can pass our message to the world leaders, because we are the future and we have to worry.

We are taking about sustainable development. If there is no link, if there is no continuity between our world leaders and the children, then that means we are just saying trash. When the leaders go, we are the ones that will remain. And, like I always say, if they don't teach us the steps to follow, then that means they will be doing a great damage to us.

So I will be pleading to the world leaders, and whoever was present at our session, to please pass the message to the leaders in their various countries, to please harken to children's voices.

We want participation.

And also, adding to what Dayo said, the title of our session was Children: ital partners in globalization and preservation of the earth. This message is to our greedy leaders. It is like they are becoming too greedy. They think of today alone; they don't think about tomorrow. And we, who are going to live tomorrow, we are thinking about today.

So what we are saying is that they should please manage our resources. They should stop selling our resources, please. That is my message.

Dayo, you are busy nodding in agreement there. You launched a booklet today, appropriately green. What is it called?

"Let's do it."

Tell us more about it. Let's do it, meaning whom?

We the children. We are trying to tell the leaders that we also have ideas. We have ideas on how we can change the world, so let's do it together. The booklet contains a project plan developed and designed by young children to change the world and to sustain development and to protect the environment and to bring about good governance and transparency.

If the world leaders would try to inculcate what is in the project book that I launched today, and try to look at it and try to follow the steps, this world would be a better place for you and me - in fact not only for children, but for all of us in the world.

What is your strategy, given the plight of children in the developing world? Is there anything you can do, since you say that the leaders are selling Africa's wealth? Practically, what can you do, Dayo, that will make a difference?

I have started my own movement, Which Children. It's where we young children, we mobilize ourselves, not waiting for the leaders to invite us but start working our own selves. We can do it. The resources are there.

In my country, I run an NGO and I have been able to do many things. I have organized many programmes, gone to many schools, gone to many churches to jimmy them up from their sleep. It is a wake-up call for them that it is high time for us to start a revolution. We can't say that, because the leaders are there, we should sit down. We should start playing our own role in building a better Nigeria, a better world and a better continent for us all.

Putting aside sustainable development for a moment, let's turn our attention to a huge problem here in South Africa. It's said that every minute a young girl, young woman or grown woman is being raped. What solutions can you think of Dayo? As a youth and as a boy, what do you say?

The first thing I would try to do is to educate the girls. They themselves are not only victims of rape, but they are also instruments of those things. Let them present themselves positively, present themselves presentably, so that they would not bring about anything that would attract rape. That's number one.

Number two, I try to work with adults and psychologists, to try to work with those who are victims of those things, to talk to them, encourage them, comfort them and also those who are not yet victims. We try to discourage others and teach them how to escape from those evil things that are done to young women.

Dayo wants to talk to girls to be "presentable". Blessing, what about the men and boys who are involved in these cases?

What I would like to say on that is this. I feel the problem is the law. The law is not functioning. You see a child that is raped. It's not easy to see a girl that is raped take a case to court, for the whole world to see that you were raped; it's not easy. It creates that lifetime trauma in you, you know. But the law is not functioning. They write it as a court case, but at the end of two or three days it is over.

What I'm trying to say is that the law, the government, should put the constitution into action. Nobody should rape a girl and go free. Rapists should be penalized.

Also, we don't only teach children their rights, we teach them their responsibilities. As a girl, if you are responsible enough, at least, probably you are walking in the night or something, you need to take care. Or yes, you may say that, because of rapists, I shouldn't walk in the night again. That is not the point. If you are responsible enough, you shouldn't wear something, you know like Dayo said, something that would attract guys, and they would come and do such a thing to you - although we know that some guys are crazy and they can't just control themselves.

That is why the government is there to put the constitution into force so that nobody can rape anybody and go free.

Dayo is itching to come in here . . .

(LAUGHS). Basically, nobody should be blamed for sexual harassment. Even sometime girls tend to harass boys. They try sometimes to rape boys, it's the same thing. So it's just an emotional thing and something that has to do with mentality and sometimes ignorance and sometimes we could call it 'hormones'. But it's just that we must have self-control with each other.

Blessing: It's very rare seeing a girl raping a guy. Most cases we have our guys raping girls. Besides, if you say a girl rapes a guy, what power has a girl got to rape a guy? But you, the guys, you are the ones that are stronger, you could force her. So that is it, they should be punished. That is my own opinion.

What about a drastic punishment such as castration, would that be a solution?

Blessing: (Laughs nervously). May I ask you what is castration?

Cutting off a man's testicles. Some people do say castration is the only way, they say "that'll stop them".

Blessing: Oh-o. No, not something as drastic as that, because you will be damaging their lives and there is a chance that they will change.

Dayo: That's awful.

Blessing: They should just look for something, something painful so that they would probably know what they've done, imprisonment and a long time in jail for them, yes. So that when they come out, they will know what the girl is feeling and the lifetime trauma they have placed on her, but not something as drastic as castration.

Dayo: Maybe we should just have a law that makes it, if you are being raped you rape the boy back. What of that? That would be reciprocal!

I'm going to return now to the subject of sustainable development, because that is the immediate issue at hand here in Johannesburg. Can sustainable development work and is there the political will, do you think, among world leaders, to preserve the environment and protect the people and ensure they have a better life?

Blessing: Yes that is the problem we are having. Our leaders are not doing anything, and yet they are not protecting our environment as I explained earlier. They are corrupt! They are corrupt! As leaders they are there to serve us. You are a servant as a leader. They are there to make us happy, not haughtiness, you know.

As children, we have our rights and that is why we are calling on world leaders to harken to our voices. Yeah, I know, like you said, if there is no political will, it can't work.

And you know, it is also our own duty to be careful of the kind of people we pick to be our leaders: not those who come and give a bag of salt and you quickly vote for them. Examine them very well. Don't be corrupt like they are. In most countries now, the leaders we see, when they are being elected, before the election they go out campaigning and saying I'll do this and I'll do that. And when they come into power, they start going against what they promised.

This is all that we are fighting against, that governments should please commit themselves. In 1990, they went to New York for the World Summit for Children and they made promises. Have they fulfilled these promises? They should please fulfil these promises, because without fulfilling these promises, there is nothing like sustainable development. We can't go ahead. So that is our plea to world leaders.

The last word goes to to you, Dayo.

I want to use this opportunity to enjoin the children of the world to rise up and stand up for their rights. Thank you very much.[WSSD]

Africa: Nigerian Teens Wow Audience and Warn African Leaders

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