Travails of children going to school on rivers used by smugglers, oil thieves
• It is an easy way of conscripting innocent students – Security expert
Children are highly vulnerable and, by all estimations, need protection against situations that portend danger to their lives. This is particularly sacrosanct for children living in riverine communities that are daily exposed to dangers by the growing activities of hoodlums on the waterways.
The Nation’s investigations revealed that the children, who by the design of nature have to go to school on the various rivers, have been going through psychological and emotional trauma, helplessly watching the menacing activities of smugglers, oil thieves and other criminals on the rivers.
Visits to one of such rivers at Ishashi\Itekun , a community between Lagos and Ogun States, revealed the magnitude of the dangers that the children encounter going and coming to school on the river used by smugglers to perpetrate their heinous acts.
The movement of the smugglers infuses fears and cripples the innocent students and other travellers on the river.
Biola, a student in the community, said: “I was perplexed the first time I saw them. In fact, I could not concentrate on my studies all through that day because of the anxiety that gripped me. I couldn’t go to school thereafter for some time because it took a very long time before I overcame the tension.”
“It is always horrible running into them. You dare not use your phone when they are coming because they would think you wanted to take their picture. I am not sure they have physically assaulted any student before but I it doesn’t have to get to that level before something is done about it. Their presence and activities are not good for our development as children,” another student said.
The waterways that separate the mainland and the island in Lagos are other notorious areas where students’ lives are frequently endangered by the activities of illegal oil bunkerers. Six students were recklessly killed and eight others seriously injured by one of such hoodlums last week at Irewe, Ojo, a suburb of Ojo Local Government Area of Lagos State.
Lamenting the risk involved in plying the waterways that serve as entry and exit points for oil thieves, Joe, a student in the community, said: “It is a common phenomenon to see illegal oil bunkerers on the water. They are always very reckless when returning from where they have gone to do their illegal business. This is quite dangerous for the innocent people, especially we the younger ones. This is what we witness from time to time but the general public would not have been aware of our predicament if the incident that claimed the lives of those children had not happened.”
Another student who gave his name as Adu said he had always had fears about the activities of the hoodlums on the river, adding that his phobia has been heightened by the ugly incident that claimed the lives of six students in the area last week.
“The frightening movement of the hoodlums on the river instills fears. They always look wild and daring. We are always praying that God should not bring them our way. Their speed on the water is always a problem to other people because they always cause the wave to affect the smooth sail of other boats and canoes. Psychologically, this has a telling effect on us as we are always crippled by fears anytime we are on the river. Nobody who has witnessed their movement on the water would wish to experience it again.
“Apart from the dangers they constitute on the river, they are bad influences on us. Some of us could be tempted to buy into their activities and begin to see illegal oil bunkering as a right way of making money.”
Sunny, a member of the community, told The Nation that illegal oil bunkering thrives in the area because they have no filling stations from where they could buy petrol for their daily use, adding: “ We don’t have a single petrol station in the whole of this island and people, with the present state of power supply in the country, would always have need for petrol to charge their phones and at least watch television. This simply accounts for why some people latch into the yearning opportunity to engage in illegal oil bunkering. Unfortunately for us, they sell it at exorbitant prices to us.
“If there were petrol stations here that could sell the product at the fixed price, oil thieves would have nobody to sell their products to and that would make them to look for something else to do. Their activities are not beneficial to us. Instead, they constitute grave dangers to our lives and those of our children. It is only some very few people that aid and abet their activities that benefit from them.”
Insufficient schools
Findings revealed that most of the children in these communities wouldn’t have been exposed to such dangers if they had enough schools in the area. Because of the dearth of schools, they are left with no alternative than to travel long distances to go to school to meet their educational needs. Itekun, for example, has just a dilapidated primary school said to have been built since 1940. Consequently, the teeming population of students troop out every morning to distant communities and different parts of Lagos State on water to go to school.
Irewe, a, community which has 37 villages stretching from Badagry area of the state to Apapa and Lagos Island under it, has just a secondary school available for all the students to attend. This, it was gathered, exposes the children to the risk of travelling on the water everyday to go to school.
A visit to the community showed that the students often spend a good part of their time travelling on the river to get to their schools. For instance, travelling in a canoe from Waterside, a loading point for the boats and canoes along Iyana Iba, in Ojo Local Government, takes about an hour to get to Irewe, while it takes between 20 to 30 minutes using flying boats. Some of the students residing along the lagoon trek a distance of about 30 minutes from their various villages to get to the bank of the river from where they usually board canoes or boats to their schools.
One of the student who identified himself as Kayode, said: “I come all the way from Whispering Palm to come to school here because there is no secondary school in my area. It is not in any way easy for most of us because a lot of challenges come with travelling on water, especially during the rainy season. It is worse on our waterways because hoodlums equally use it. If there were enough secondary schools across the communities, most of us would not be taking the risk of travelling far distances to go to school everyday.”
Another student, who simply gave his name as Abayomi, also expressed concern about the plight of the students, saying: “We only have a secondary school when people on land have a variety of schools to choose from. This does not enhance our learning because the teachers can afford to be complacent knowing full well that we have no alternative. If we had more schools, one can move to another school if one is not getting what he wants here.”
Odunayo, a pupil in Itekun, explained that she prefers taking the risk of crossing the river to schooling in the community. She described the community’s school as a goat house, adding: “The school I attend in Lagos is very beautiful. It can never be compared with this one. I don’t think that one can acquire the right knowledge attending the school.”
Also speaking, Chief Simon Olabisi Aina, the Agbaakin of Itekunland, regretted that the community has not had more than a primary school 300 years after its existence.
Lamenting the absence of standard schools in the community, Chief Aina said: “We really feel very bad that the community does not have more than a primary school built in 1940 by the Anglican Communion. Most of the people here don’t want their children to attend the school because it is a rural school. Many people from Lagos that came here to build houses would never allow their children to go to school here. A good number of the people in the community prefer to send their children to Lagos than allow them to school here.
“Travelling on the river is a big risk, especially when it is raining. When rain falls, people would not be able to go out or come in. Imagine what the situation would look like if these innocent children are caught midway on the river by a downpour. It is so bad that most of the children don’t even go to school and many parents also do not go to work during the rainy season to avoid the danger of boat capsize. No matter how much you know how to swim, one would still be scared. A Yoruba adage says that a good swimmer ends up dying in water. We do have canoes capsizing and it has claimed my lives in the past. It has stopped a little bit since we have engine boats plying the river now.”
He continued: “The secondary school they gave us in 1980 is about 10 kilometers away from here. The school naturally closed down because many of our people could not go there. The community is trying to do something about it but the fact is that it is too far for our children. The nearest secondary school that our children can attend is at Igbesa, which is about six kilometers away from here. Commercial motorcycle operators charge between N300 and N400 to take a passenger there because of the bad state of the road. If we have good primary and secondary schools, our children would not be risking their lives travelling on the water every day.
“Recently, some officials of the Ogun State government came to remove the leaking roofs and replaced them with new ones but that was the last time we saw them. The school lacks furniture and other basic amenities. The students were sitting on the floor until I gave out the benches in my house to them. Not many parents, especially those who have the wherewithal, would want their wards in such a school. We want the government of Lagos and Ogun States to close ranks and build a bridge over the river so that the lives of our people can be saved from the dangers they pass through every day.”
Absence of life jackets for students
Aside from the dangers of moving on the same water with hoodlums, checks revealed that the lives of the students are further endangered by the inability of the transporters to provide life jackets for them. The elderly residents and visitors are always provided with life jackets. “The transporters don’t have life jackets for us but they have for elderly people. They are always sure of their expertise and also confident that no calamity would happen. We equally were not bothering about it because most of us know how to swim,” one of the students said.
If the parents had been banking on the ability of the wards to swim all along, the incident of last week has made them to realise the importance of life jackets.
Angered by the loss of her 18-year-old daughter, Mrs. Akindele, one of the bereaved parents, said that no child in the community would take the risk of going to school on the water without life jackets. She pleaded that life jackets should be provided for the children to avert dangers in the future.
“It is important that our children are provided with life jackets to save them from imminent dangers on the river. Left to me, no child would take the risk of travelling on the river to go to school without wearing life jackets. They should sit back at home if life jackets are not provided for them, after all what is the outcome for those of us that even went to the so called school?” she asked rhetorically.
She added: “The government should also deem it fit to build new secondary schools for us to save our children the risk and stress of travelling long distances to get to school. The population of children in this community has soared beyond what a secondary school can accommodate. Our village is far bigger than Irewe where the school is located. It is imperative that we have one secondary school constructed for our children to reduce the challenges they face every day.”
The monarch of the community, His Royal Majesty, Oba Adekanbi Durosinmi Agunbioyinbo II, Osolu of Irewe, also called on the government to “provide life jackets for the children of different age grades coming from far places on water to school here. There are jackets for the adults but there are none for the children.”
He, however, differed with the call for the construction of new secondary schools in the area. Instead, he said the government should turn the existing one into a boarding school. “Aside from life jackets, we want the government to make our secondary a boarding school so that these children would not have to risk their lives travelling on the water to get to the school.
“Presently, we have a four-bedroom flat hostel for the teachers but that is still not enough because a lot of them still come on water everyday to the school. The government should help look into this and also give us more teachers because there are not enough teachers to teach the students.”
Wilson Esangbedo, a security expert, expressed serious concern about the despicable experience of the students, stating: “They are capable of being caught in a cross fire in a situation where the hoodlums and security operatives exchange gun shots. If the hoodlums in question are oil thieves, there could be oil spill in the course of trying to escape from security agents. If for any reason the oil catches fire, the students may be consumed. The females are also prone to all manners of abuses by the hoodlums who most often operate without conscience.
Also speaking, Honourable Prince Dipo Okeyomi, the Executive Director of Marial Security in Texas, United States of America, blamed the escalation of the menace on the failure of security agents to nib the problem in the bud, saying: “The security agents know these hoodlums but they have always refused to do the needful. They cannot say that they don’t know the hoodlums. They know them very well. This is why you see some of the hoodlums wearing uniforms of different security agents in the course of their operations. Some of the hoodlums in trying to appear to be doing legal businesses have built hotels and petrol stations. They give free lodging and feeding to their security-agent friends. “Those that have invested in petrol stations are quick to give free petrol and diesel to them in a bid to continue to enjoy their unholy support. The implications are many and dangerous for the society. The first implication is that some of the students could be killed as it happened last week in Irewe. “The second implication is that some of the students could be influenced to take to such criminal acts because they have seen that they are cheap ways of becoming wealthy. When you have children watching criminals having a field day in their activities almost on a daily basis, you will certainly have some of them that would gladly want to toe that line or be part of them.”
Explaining the psychological effect of criminals’ activities on students on the waterways, Lateefat Odunuga, a psychologist, said: “When children are exposed to these experiences, some of them could be adventurous to explore the end of the experience, while some are afraid to attempt it. Some children are fast learners who learn through some modelling. This could result in them engaging in behaviours that might not be morally acceptable.
“The survivors of boat wrecks are always in a far worse condition, psychologically as well as physically. They’ve usually swallowed lots of chemical toxins, salt water, other waste substances and are suffering from respiratory diseases as well as mental trauma, having been in the water and having seen their companions die.”
She added: “Users and operators of vessels on waterways should take extra precautions during the current rainy season when ocean levels and tidal waves increase. They should also be able to call the attention of credible government forces when they are confronted by hoodlums. This would help to reduce the rate of hazards children are exposed to. More life jackets should also be provided.”
Speaking on the efforts of the Nigerian Customs Service towards combating the activities of hoodlums on waterways, the Public Relations Officer, Western Marine Command, Ngozi Okwara, said: “We are working assiduously to rid the waterways of smugglers. Our men have just been recently trained and well equipped with AK 47 to deal with the smugglers.
“The training proved very useful last month when some smugglers attacked our men with dangerous weapons. Our men overpowered them using the knowledge and equipment they acquired during the training.”
She dismissed fears that innocent citizens could be injured when the officers go after hoodlums, adding: “Smugglers don’t operate anyhow. They have hours of the day that they operate and I can assure that we are on top of our job and would never operate in a way that would be detrimental to the public that we are serving.”
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