Some stakeholders on Thursday called for more attention for the boy child’s health and wellness across the country.
They made the call at an event to mark the 2024 International Day of the Boy Child, with the theme `Boy’s Health and Wellbeing’ in Abuja.
Mr Hillary Akpua, Founder, Great Achievers Initiative For Youth And Community Development, GAIYD, said that more attention was paid to the girl child.
Akpua maintained that, often time the boy child was neglected forgetting that they also needed protection and mentoring just as the girls.
He emphasised that it was very sad that only two Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) were focusing on the male child, GAIYD and another one in Lagos.
He said, “Often time the male child are forgotten in the society, that is why we said no, there should be a voice that speaks for this under represented people.
According to him, everything starts from the family, if the family is corrected, l know our society will be better.
“There is no way the family will be better if you don’t have a good male child, many pay more attention to the female child while their male counterpart suffers neglect.
“The society that focus mainly on the female child should know that when they are of age, they will marry an untrained male child somewhere who is going to abuse them.
“Today, we are celebrating the international day of the male child and this is a wakeup call to invest more in the welfare and wellbeing of our male child.
“In the schools we visited to educate the boy child, we have a mindset that we are not looking to impact everybody but even if we manage to impact one boy, we are okay,’’ he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the event was organised by GAIYD.
In his remarks, Dr Mainasara Umar, an international analyst from the National Unity and Democracy, stated that the future quality of any society and family was projected upon the type of boys the family and society incubated today.
Umar said, “The root cause of our problem is immorality.
According to him, we have leaders who are deficient in morality, leaders who have forgotten our history.
“Most of the people who are influencing today are products of free education initiated by the past government.
“It is too bad that today, somebody will be bragging of having many boys but if you ask him the quality of moral training, nutrition, peer control and education he is giving to the boys, he will go mute.
“In the Northern Nigeria, we are only producing numbers with deficiency in quality. We should be just and fair to ourselves by giving birth to the number of children we can comfortably take care of,’’ he said.
Earlier, Mr Chidi Ndukwu, Deputy Commander of Narcotics, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), said that according to the National Drug Use Survey conducted in Nigeria in 2018, one in seven persons aged 15–64 had used a drug (other than tobacco and alcohol) in the past year.
Ndukwu said that the past year’s prevalence of any drug use was estimated at 14.4percent,
corresponding to 14.3million people aged 15–64 who had used a psychoactive substance in the past year for non-medical purposes.
He said “Among every four drug users in Nigeria, three are men.
“According to the global crime statistics, men consistently dominate crime perpetration across various categories, including violent crimes, property crimes, and white-collar offenses.
“The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and other international crime databases consistently report a substantial male over representation in crime rates worldwide as both offenders and victims.
“These men in question were the boys of yesterday: consequently, the boys of today will definitely be the men of tomorrow.
“That is why this kind of programme that addresses issues bordering on the boy child is very important.
“We should therefore make deliberate efforts to douse the male inherent nature of radicalism, extremism among others, to ensure a better Society,’’ he said.
NAN reports that the event has in attendance male students from eight schools in Abuja and environs who participated in essay competition, winning scholarships and lots of other prizes.
