Children should be allowed to be children. They should not be exposed to the cruel reality of how Nigeria consistently fails to function. Let that be an unwelcome surprise for adulthood. That was pretty much the main criticism I faced when I wrote my first children’s book Emeka’s Money: A modern parable about the impact of corruption? that is teaching kids to speak out against corruption, and the importance of standing up to it.
Children as victims of corruption
Yet the more I spoke with children in schools, the more I knew they were not being shielded from corruption. They were experiencing it every day. Whether it was when daddy “dashed” the policeman at the checkpoint, or when they went along the dangerous roads that had either not been built well or repaired for years. Kids were sitting in uncompleted classrooms, visiting dilapidated clinics, were forced to pay unofficial fees in supposedly free public schools and sometimes even coerced into under-age voting. Children in Nigeria experience corruption every day and are too often its main victims. Many of these corrupt activities which they experience have become so normal they are routine. Yet despite this daily experience, there is no framework for the children to interpret what they are seeing. Is it good or is it bad? Is it just the way life works?
Breaking the corruption trap
More disturbing is also the attitude of young teenagers and adults. The expectation that you need to know some one to get a job or pay bribes to achieve anything. It is hard to argue that the fault lies with them, it’s just the way our society has accepted all these practices as normal. The more I speak with children, the more I realise that if we want to break out of the corruption trap, we need to encourage a different attitude towards corruption from the younger generation. We need future leaders at all levels with integrity, who will stand-up to and speak-out against corruption. This needs to start happening in the children’s formative years.
Children’s books on corruption
My books focus on unpacking different aspects of corruption and how it impacts on daily life. Through Step Up Nigeria?s ?Catch Them Young initiative?, we have been using my books ‘Emeka’s Money’ and ‘Halima’s Vote’ to teach anti-corruption education to children. Although we have not been doing this for long, we have had some short-term impact that has encouraged me to keep going on with this initiative.
The most memorable for me was the story of a six-year-old girl in one of the schools we engaged. During the run up to elections, we had just read Halima’s Vote to the students in her school. Halima’s Vote teaches children about the negative impact of vote buying on public service delivery. It also teaches children about the power of voting.
Our votes are our power…
Some weeks after we engaged students on vote buying, a politician came with a big lorry full of food items to buy votes from residents in that area. His gang had parked a lorry near the school gate. The little girl saw his gang distributing food items from the lorry. She panicked and ran to the headmistress office saying “mummy mummy please tell the security man not to open the gate. Some people are here to buy our votes. Our votes are our power. We cannot sell.” The headmistress was shocked and said, where is this coming from. The little girl replied, “Halima’s Vote. Halima’s Vote taught us this. The headmistress admitted she was going out to collect the food items but changed her mind after the little girl spoke to her.
When I heard this story, my heart melted. This gave me more confidence that if we can sustain this initiative, then maybe we can create a new generation of young people with strong integrity who are willing to act to stop corruption.
It encouraged me to keep writing and to keep doing the school engagements. In my most recent book, ‘Tosin’s Story’, a building collapses. Lives are lost. A young investigative journalist named Tosin unravels corruption and cover-ups, in a race against time to save more lives. Crucial to this is her courage and integrity and her willingness to speak out against corruption even when those around her are either complicit in the corruption or content to turn a blind eye.
Catch Them Young Initiative
With thanks to backing from donors such as UNODC and MacArthur Foundation, Step Up Nigeria have already reached over 4,200 children with our books and class-room engagements over the last year and over the next two years we will have reached more than 20,000. We are beginning to produce young anti-corruption champions who are speaking out against corruption. One of them is 13 years old Naomi Oloyede who recently got the attention of the world as a result of the speech she gave at the Education for Justice conference organised by the United Nations Office of Drugs and crime (UNODC). Her speech was focused on the need to have a fair society and tackle corruption.
My dream is that we will be able to roll out this type of engagement to every Nigerian child. We want to create thousands of Naomi’s. Only if we catch them young, can we hope to change public attitudes towards corrupt behaviour. Teaching kids to speak out against corruption is crucial. If we can change these attitudes, I strongly believe we have hope of properly tackling corruption in Nigeria.
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One Reply to “Teaching Kids to Speak Out Against Corruption”
Wow…..we are sincerely proud of you and what you are doing about enlightening children about corruption. The need to catch them young cannot be over emphasised as they are not shielded from the evils of corruption and if not addressed timely they will definitely grow with the wrong mentality of seeing corruption as normal. As an organisation concerned with serving humanity, corruption stands in our way of providing quality health care, basic education and literacy, maternal and child heath clean water and sanitation amongst others for citizens. The Rotaract Club of Akoka Golden is starting an anti corruption campaign and we would be very much interested in working with you and your organisation in teaching kids how to speak up when they see corruption. We would be starting with a number of primary schools within our community. Please do send us a reply soonest to know if you are interested in this partnership. We are Rotaract Club of Akoka Golden, The youth Wing of Rotary International District 9110 Nigeria. We are based in Shomolu, Lagos. We look forward to your positive response soonest.