By Christian Njoku
As the day winds down in Calabar, with heavy traffic and people hurrying home after work, a new kind of life begins—especially in areas like Marian Road, where food joints and clubs with loud music spring to life, inviting residents to relax before heading home.
At the center of this nightlife is Daniel Iboro, a former street child who now earns a living as a disc jockey in one of the city’s popular nightclubs.
Tall, dark, and handsome at 21, Daniel could easily pass as a role model for the Gen Z generation. But his journey to this point was far from easy.
At just 13, Daniel became a street child around the Bogobiri area of Calabar, one of those derogatorily referred to as “skolombo” by residents, many of whom did not know the real meaning or origin of the word.
According to him, life on the streets began in 2017 after conflicts with his father.
“I was stubborn, and several times out of anger my father used a machete on me, probably intending to cut off my head. I still have the scars. It became clear the home was no longer safe,” he recalled.
With nowhere else to go, he turned to the streets, hoping for food and freedom. But both proved elusive because the streets had their own systems and “government.”
“I wanted to be free, but life there was terrible. You had to hide any money or food given to you by good Samaritans, because older and stronger street children would take it from you. If you resisted, they would smash your head with a bottle as happened to me.”
Daniel soon got used to the harsh reality: it was common to see fellow street children injured or even die and they conducted the burials in their own crude ways.
Knowing he was heading nowhere, Daniel persistently appealed to be enrolled in school which endeared him to Street Priest Incorporated, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) that helps street children in vulnerable situations.
“I refused to die on the streets, thank God for Street Priest Incorporated who invested in my secondary education. Today, I work as a DJ, but I want to further my studies in Social Works so I can help other street children,” he said.
Similarly, God’s-gift Meyene, another teenager, found refuge with Street Priest Incorporated. He had run away from home after his father neglected him when his mother left the family.
“My schooling stopped. My father, who had become a heavy smoker, no longer provided for me. He would return from his butchery business high, shouting and threatening.
“I left home for the streets, but life there was no better. We slept in front of shops, even in the rain. Sometimes shop owners and passers-by beat us, calling us thugs or thieves, I survived by begging or doing menial jobs.
“We were always dirty because there was nowhere to bathe, and we were always hungry,” he said.
Several attempts to return God’s-gift to his father failed. The father refused to take responsibility, while his mother relocated to Akwa Ibom.
“If my father changes his mind and asks me to come home, I will but he won’t change. Even if he pretends, after two days his true colours will show,” he said.
While Daniel and God’s-gift were lucky to find help, others have not been so fortunate.
Bassey Henshaw, now 20, has lived on the streets since completing his Common Entrance Examination. He could not proceed to secondary school or learn a trade because his father said he had no money.
“I survive by scavenging in refuse heaps for plastic bottles and cartons, which I sell to get money for food,” he said.
Bassey bears a scar on his face from a bottle attack by other street children who tried to steal his money. His right heel also has a deep sore, now putrid from lack of care, after stepping on broken glass while scavenging.
David Etim, 19, also lives on the streets. He and his elder brother were thrown out of their home in 2014 after their mother accused them of witchcraft, following a prophet’s claim.
“My elder brother was killed by a hit-and-run driver. Since nobody helped us, we dug a hole and buried him ourselves. I have not seen my mother since then she moved out without telling anyone where she was going,” he recounted.
The challenge of street children in vulnerable situations is a major problem in many Nigerian cities. In Calabar, the boys are derogatorily called “skolombo” while the girls are referred to “alakasera”
During the day, these groups of boys can be seen in ragged clusters at street corners, either begging or causing nuisance. Others scavenge on refuse heaps to survive.
The girls, however, are less visible in the daytime. At night, many are forced into child prostitution in local brothels and relaxation spots, where clients with a preference for children exploit them.
Investigation reveals that this trend is also common in Benin City around the popular Ring Road and Ramat Park; in Uyo around Ibom Plaza in the heart of the city. In Owerri they are everywhere around Douglas Road down to “Ama Awusa”.
Similarly, the Centre of Excellence, Lagos and even the ancient city of Ibadan are not spared of the repugnant sights of these children as they are seen under the bridges around Oshodi, Onipan, Munshin and in Iwo Road, Mukola, Ojo and even Challenge in Ibadan.
Although, there are no explicit data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on children living full-time on the streets like the data on child labour or out-of-school children, these children are everywhere.
Some reports estimate that there are about seven to 15 million street children in Nigeria between the ages of 10 to 17 with Lagos, bearing the brunt of about 100,000.
These reports identified Poverty, family breakdown, neglect, abuse, domestic violence, single-parenthood, parental inability to provide, unemployment, lack of educational opportunities, and rural-to-urban migration as key drivers.
Mr William Okina, Senior Director of Development at Street Priest Incorporated said they meet a lot of children on the streets daily but can only assist a few that show intense desire to leave the streets and be educated.
Okina said they can only assist a few based on the resources available and the willingness of the children to leave the streets because many of them give fake names as they have observed in their database.
“We have been able to fully rehabilitate more than 20 children who were once on the streets and we have many more that move in and out of the streets, it is usually a gradual process to rehabilitate these kids
According to him, key drivers of this malaise are parental and societal irresponsibility, some parents give birth to children that they lack the capacity to cater for and try to shift the responsibility to the society that is neither prepared.
He said there is also the issue of witchcraft branding common in Akwa Ibom and Cross River, where children dealing with poverty, trauma or even autism are labeled witches and driven from their homes on a “prophet’s” directive.
“Many of such children earlier branded witches and left to rot away on the streets have been placed in proper systems and are well-behaved, even excelling in school.
“While the problem has remained for years now, what many of us have done as a people is just call the children names like “skolombo” which puts them at risk because “skolombo” in Cross River is a cult group and these are just street children.
“When you call them skolombo which they hate, they become aggressive because it brands them and if the real members of the cult group hear them responding to the name when they are not members, they are endangered even more
Okina said when they started reaching out to street children from 2014 it was not as an organisation but just to help one kid at a time but over time they realised that the problem was not just bigger than them, it was everybody’s problem.
He said they have tried reaching out to the public and especially government but the responses are usually slow, uncoordinated, and politically driven.
“For example, initiatives like feeding street children on the governor’s wife’s birthday or using security operatives to round the children up without a plan on where to keep them or what to do with them solves nothing.
“Organisations like ours have years of data, experience, and direct access to the children that government can leverage on to build real solutions but instead, we keep seeing quick fixes.
The truth is, the number of street children keeps rising because for every child you rehabilitate, at least five more take their place on the streets until we start dealing with the drivers of this evil and government decides to work with groups with competence on this matter.
In July 1990, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Assembly of Heads of State and Government adopted and amended the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) into the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC).
Member states of the OAU, now the African Union (AU), believed that the CRC did not adequately reflect the sociocultural and economic realities peculiar to Africa and therefore needed to articulate the rights of the African child more contextually.
Meanwhile, in 2003, Nigeria enacted the Child Rights Act, drawing from the provisions of both the CRC and the ACRWC, this same law was domesticated in Cross River in 2009 as A Law to Protect the Rights of a Child and Other Related Matters.
However, despite these bogus international and local frameworks including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) the protection of children in the state has remained largely ineffective or almost nonexistent.
In 2009, Mrs. Obioma Imoke, wife of Sen. Liyel Imoke, then Governor of Cross River, founded the Destiny’s Child Centre in Calabar to provide shelter for vulnerable children.
A total of 201 children were enrolled, out of which 153 received formal education and 36 were trained in vocational skills.
However, like most government interventions, the project was plagued by several controversies and eventually collapsed when that administration ended in 2015, forcing many of the children back onto the streets of Calabar.
The response of Gov. Ben Ayade’s administration from 2015 was the establishment of a security outfit codenamed “Operation Skolombo” to carry out punitive actions against these street children, who were said to be becoming uncontrollable.
While this reinforced society’s negative perception of the children, it did not address the underlying issue of how children who are blessings from God became products of the streets and how they survive daily.
Similarly, in 2018, the government of Cross River announced plans to rehabilitate over 1,000 street children and established the Child Protection Commission.
The agency visited several locations in Calabar where street children clustered, made promises, and disappeared, nothing tangible came out of it afterwards.
Mr. Kebe Ikpi, Coordinator of the Child Protection Network (CPN) in Cross River, said that as an organisation partnering with the state government on the issue, they have made numerous recommendations drawing attention to critical areas.
He explained that they have consistently de-emphasised the institutionalisation of care such as the hostel-style arrangements practiced under Imoke’s administration which is not globally accepted or the use of security forces to punish already suffering street children like common criminals.
“We are pushing for an alternative care programme that is family-centred and the present administration, through the Ministries of Women Affairs and Social Welfare, has embraced this idea by setting up a State Alternative Care Committee (SACC) to look into the matter.
“I think as a state, we know what to do; the challenge is simply the political will to do it, otherwise why is it difficult to release resources to implement the Child Rights Law that we spent so much time, energy, and money to domesticate?”
He maintained that it is important to create a system that holds the parents of these children accountable while also ensuring a coordinated synergy between the government and civil society organisations (CSOs).
He added that government institutions must live up to their responsibilities in implementing the Child Rights Act, while parents and families should remain central to the solution.
Talking of implementation, a visit to Cross River’s Ministries of Women Affairs and Social Welfare in Calabar, two key ministries if the problem of street children is to be addressed showed that both were mere shadows of themselves, appearing deserted and devoid of activity.
A government official who pleaded anonymity alleged that most of the responsibilities of both ministries had been taken over by the Office of the Wife of the Governor, leaving the ministries almost redundant.
“Of course, you know the commissioners cannot talk about this because of the kind of politics we run, the truth is, even ordinary imprest to run the offices and carry out programmes has become difficult to access,” the official alleged.
However, Mrs. Faith Okon, Press Secretary to Mrs. Eyoawan Otu, Wife of the Governor of Cross River, debunked the allegation, claiming that they had tried to meet with both ministries to understand their plans for street children but received no response.
“Although provisions for the care of these children are already included in the budgets of both ministries, if they fail to act, the Governor’s wife cannot simply fold her arms while children continue to live on the streets.
Her Excellency has a plan to house these children in partnership with her counterpart in Akwa Ibom, but she wants something sustainable, one that will outlive her and not die when the current administration ends.”
A review of the 2024 budget of the Ministry of Women Affairs revealed that over ₦931 million was approved, but only a little above ₦125 million was released, covering mostly capital expenditure, personnel, and overhead costs.
With an outstanding balance of over ₦806 million, the budget performance stood at just 13.4 per cent making it difficult to address critical issues such as the care of street children.
Mr. Ken Henshaw, Executive Director of We The People, an NGO in Cross River, said the menace of “skolombo” began around the year 2000, coinciding with the rise of religious houses that branded children as witches and wizards.
He explained that although it is a criminal offence to label any child a witch or wizard under Cross River’s Child Rights Law, enforcement has remained weak.
“In 2020, we published a 10-minute documentary titled ‘Left to Die’ the story of Cross River’s street children and launched a petition that gathered 3,800 signatures calling on the state government to take action based on our recommendations.
But as I speak to you, nothing concrete has been done, the problem keeps worsening; many of the street children who were kids five to seven years ago are now teenagers,” he said.
According to him, a few years ago, a street child in Calabar known as John was accused of stealing and was mobbed to death, nobody, including the police did anything about it because residents believed the boy was a criminal.
He added that if nothing is done soon, violent crimes committed not out of hunger but out of anger will increase because that is the only thing society has taught these boys.
The problem of street children in Nigeria is complex, rooted in poverty, family breakdown, poor governance, and the absence of social safety nets.
Solving it requires a multi-dimensional and sustained approach involving government, NGOs, communities, families and individuals.
To achieve this, child protection laws against abuse and neglect must be strengthened and enforced, while universal birth registration should be promoted to make every child visible and eligible for education and welfare benefits.
At the family and community levels, sincere poverty-alleviation programmes that support and empower struggling families must be implemented, while parents should be educated on child care, family planning, and the dangers of child abandonment.
It is also important for NGOs and faith-based organisations to provide shelter, education, and counselling for street children, while media campaigns addressing the causes and dangers of child destitution must remain consistent.
The time to act is now to save our society of this ticking time bomb.
Emmanuel Onwuka