Akwa Ibom Witchcraft Panel Uncovers Can Of Worms: Akpabio Has No Budget For Abandoned Children

Akwa Ibom "child witches"-Photo: Sunday Alamba/AP

Startling revelations have continued to emerge from the judicial panel set up by Akwa Ibom state governor, Chief Godwill Akpabio, to look into the alleged child witch syndrome and cases of child abuse in the state.

The sittings, which are going on in Uyo, the state capital, are uncovering a pattern of embarrassing negligence by various organs of the state government saddled with the responsibility of caring for abandoned and vulnerable children in the state.

This has led the panel to lambast the state’s Ministry of Women Affairs for poor welfare of abandoned children.  Members of the panel made the observation on Tuesday when officials of the ministry appeared to testify.

 When asked to disclose the level of funds budgeted for the upkeep of the abandoned children in the three homes run by the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Welfare, the panel was shocked to be told the Ministry had no budget for the children.

The Ministry was also ignorant of the activities of NGOs in the state which took up the challenge of providing for the children who were stigmatized, and who found themselves abandoned and neglected by the government and society.

 Curiously, the Akwa Ibom government recently began to clamp down on the child rights activists in the state which championed the cause of the children.

Under the recently passed Child Rights Act, the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Welfare is supposed to regulate the activities of NGOs working with children in the state.

Justice Godwin Abraham, the chairman of the Panel, observed that the Ministry was performing below the expectation of the government and citizens, and urged them to sit up and face the challenges of protecting children in Akwa Ibom.

 Abraham said that it was unacceptable that the Ministry Staff did not follow up cases of vulnerable children referred to it for custody, and wondered why there would be no funding plan for children in its custody in various centres.

In her testimony to the commission, Mrs. Veronica Okon, a Director in the Ministry told the Commission there are 171 children in the custody of the ministry in three centres.  She also noted that 12 cases of child witch stigmatization were currently being investigated by the Ministry for the year 2010.

Mrs. Okon also said that eight witchcraft stigmatisation cases were pending before the recently introduced Family Court.
 She told the Commission that the child witch syndrome was a challenge to the ministry as it gave rise to the high incidence of child abandonment in the state. “We found those children to be good children, well behaved because we had interaction with them while in our custody,” she said.

Mrs. Okon threw the blame at the parents, saying, “The fishermen amongst the parents accused their children of being responsible for poor catches and the traders said their children was responsible for low sales but the truth remains that the parents are very lazy people.”

The Judicial panel was sworn in by Governor Akpabio on November 22, 2010.