Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has sent a petition to Mrs. Fatou Bensouda, Prosecutor, International Criminal Court (ICC), urging her to use her good office to investigate the problem of out-of-school children in Nigeria, and the failure of the Nigerian authorities over the years to address it.
It says it amounts to violence against children and crimes against humanity within the jurisdiction of the ICC.”
The organization urged Mrs Bensouda to push for those suspected to be responsible for this problem, including current and former presidents and state governors since 1999, who directly or indirectly has individually and/or collectively breached their special duty toward children, and are therefore complicit in the crime, to be tried by the ICC.”
In the petition dated 19th July, 2019 and signed by SERAP deputy director Kolawole Oluwadare, the organization said: “Investigating and prosecuting high-ranking Nigerian officials and providing reparation to victims will contribute to serving the best interests of Nigerian children, the most vulnerable citizens in our country, and ending the impunity that is denying them their right to education and a life free of violence and fear.”
SERAP said: “These out-of-school Nigerian children have been exposed to real danger, violence and even untimely death. Senior Nigerian politicians since 1999 have failed to understand the seriousness of the crime of leaving millions of children out of school, and have made an essential contribution to the commission of the crime.”
Nigeria’s former Minister of Education Mr Adamu Adamu has suggested the figure of out-of-school children in Nigeria to be 10,193,918, citing a recent ‘National Personnel Audit’ of both public and private schools in the country.”
“According to the former Minister of Education, all of the 36 states in Nigeria are affected by the problem of out-of-school children but the problem is more widespread and systematic in the following states: Kano, Akwa Ibom, Katsina, Kaduna, Taraba, Sokoto, Yobe, Zamfara, Oyo, Benue, Jigawa and Ebonyi states.”
“Girls are disproportionately represented among out-of-school children.
In north-eastern Nigeria alone, 2.8 million children are in need of education-in-emergencies support in three conflict-affected States (Borno, Yobe, Adamawa). In these States, at least 802 schools remain closed and 497 classrooms are listed as destroyed, with another 1,392 damaged but repairable.”
SERAP therefore urged the ICC Prosecutor to urgently commence an investigation on the widespread and systematic problem of out-of-school children in Nigeria since the return of democracy in 1999, with a view to determining whether these amount to violence against children and crime against humanity within the Court’s jurisdiction.
