I was shocked and even shed tears when I saw a video trending on Facebook of a 11-year-old boy that was allegedly chained by his family members and keeping him in an animal stall for two years in Kebbi state.
Subsequently, other videos went viral of the same cases in Kano and last week in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital and epicenter of Boko Haram insurgency.
At about last two years, the news of related cases broke in Nigeria and the northern part of the country in particular where parents send their children to the ‘Torture Houses’ in the name of rehabilitation.
In September 2019, hundreds people were freed in Kaduna by the police in a single house. It was said that the captives were seen with chains around their ankles as police freed them and some captives were as young as five years old, according to the police. Unfortunately, some were allegedly sexually abused and tortured.
Where is the humanity if you can detain, chain or jail your fellow human being in a restricted area without providing him/her enough food and water as well as keeping him/her in a dirty condition? Can we say the detainers are doing it for ritual or just for punishment? If it’s for punishment, why not follow the legal process while taking actions?
It was said that humanity is the human race, which includes everyone on earth. It’s also a word for the qualities that make us human, such as the ability to love and have compassion, be creative, and not be a robot or alien. When people ask for money to help feed starving children, they’re appealing to your sense of humanity.
Regrettably, most of the detainees are Muslims and from Muslim families despite the fact that Islam has condemned the practice of maltreating human beings.
The Qur’an itself is concerned with establishing boundaries that Muslims are prohibited from transgressing. Within these boundaries, the Quran treats human beings as equally valuable and endowed with certain rights by virtue of simply being human, hence human rights.
The rights bestowed upon humans in the Quran include the right to life and peaceful living, as well as the right to own, protect, and have property protected, Islamic economic jurisprudence. The Quran also contains rights for minority groups and women, as well as regulations of human interactions as between one another to the extent of dictating how prisoners of war ought to be treated.
Sadly, it’s in the same North that under aged children are sent to informal schools in the name of seeking Islamic knowledge and continue roaming the street, begging for livelihood without considering the dangers associated with the practice.
I also blame the parents of the children for not helping the teachers in taking care of their children whenever they send them to the schools.
It’s hoped that we will treat our fellow humans with politeness and kindness.
Abdulmumin Kolo Gulani,Damaturu, Yobe state
