2026 Children’s Day: Which children is Nigeria celebrating?

By Prisca Sam-Duru

Something bizarre happened in my neighbourhood recently. I still wish that I didn’t see even a bit of that video. I noticed people gathered in front of a shop. I decided to check what was happening. They were watching a video. In fact, the crowd was sharing the video among themselves through WhatsApp. You can never guess what they were watching and gossiping about. It was one of our community’s landlord’s daughter’s porn video. I almost puked! The manner in which she worked on the guy like she owned him, and the fellatio were all done like a pro would; at least from the bit I saw. Curiosity really kills the cat! You know the painful thing? She is an undergraduate in one of Nigeria’s universities and not even up to 19 years. She is a Nigerian child. That is the kind of child we just celebrated on May 27. You’d be shocked to know that a good number of our children are transiting from runs girls or hook up girls to porn stars. And it’s all for the money.

Condemnations flew from every corner. Her mother was bashed, and her senior sister was blamed for indoctrinating her into such immoral conduct. Her boldness and shamelessness made me take a closer look at her face. She was high! Is that the kind of child we just celebrated in Nigeria? We are celebrating children who are introduced to drugs at a tender age and would do anything to look dope with costly wigs and big phones.

Economic challenges, craze to belong, decaying moral values, etc, are taking away the essence of being children from our young ones. This is sad!

In those days, Children’s Day was usually a big day for us. We looked forward to match past, dance competitions, and more on that day. Today, no parent wants to hear that the child would be participating in any activity even within the school premises due to insecurity.

We just celebrated Children’s Day, leaving the kidnapped Oyo children sleeping with psychopaths known as terrorists in the bush. Those are Nigerian children said to be mostly in nursery and primary. 

We also saw a video of school children in one of the states in the country scampering for safety and running home from school following a terrorist invasion scare. This is where we are now. It has gotten to the level where children, be it in the North or South, are now scared to stay in school.

The 2026 National Children’s Day has come and gone and may go down as the worst celebration in the country so far. This year again, Nigeria marked International Children’s Day without Leah Sharibu, who was kidnapped as a child, as well as some Chibok Girls abducted many years ago who are still in captivity.

The many children in several IDP camps, either with their parents or as orphans, did they also celebrate 2026 Children’s Day? Did we also wish the little ones who are among the over 18 million 0ut-Of-School children in Nigeria, Happy children’s Day? This is what Nigeria has done to its future leaders.

Well, we just celebrated a day as crucial as International Children’s Day, with more out-of-school children, not only due to insecurity but excruciating poverty. This is why more children are now used as child labours, and street hawkers, exposing them to rape, ritual killings, trafficking and several other kinds of danger.

How did Nigeria get to the stage whereby children are kidnapped from school and videoed sleeping in the bush, and all is quiet? The worst is that politicians just go about positioning themselves for the next round of power grabbing. Nobody in authority resigns for failing the people in this part of the world. Now, they are campaigning for another four years in office. To do what exactly?

We need to celebrate our children knowing they are well catered for, protected, and with assurance of a brighter future. No Nigerian child deserves to be out-of-school considering that the country is endowed enough to handle free education. The government needs to double the effort to ensure the safe return of the children in terrorists’ captivity and that children are protected while in school; no child learns well in fear. Next time we mark children’s day, it must be to celebrate Nigerian children  as most outstanding globally.

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