DEVIANT SITUATIONS LEADING THE BOY CHILD INTO BECOMING A DISHONORABLE MAN IN NIGERIA.
By Mary Ekpo
In a patriarchal society such as ours, a boy is expected to be macho, fend for himself at an early age, get a job, marry a wife and maintain a family. In some societies an adult male who still stays in his parent’s house is called a woman by his peers. Boys must be boys, no matter what. But with all these expectations, several boys are on the streets without homes or even families.
Whether as an “almajiri” in the North, “Area Boy” or “Alaye” in Lagos and the South-West, or Boyee in the east by whatever name they are called, street children are minors who live, survive and grow on the streets, and most of them are boys. They are street-working and they consider those on the street as their families. Being homeless and unloved, they are often rugged but equally vulnerable
1. Area Boy (Agbero) The nomenclature of Area boys can also mean touts, Alaayes, Agberos, omo onile, they are generally considered deviant youths who use extortion, exploitation, petty crimes and sometimes violent means to earn income. These groups grew along with the emergence of a growing informal economy of street trading. Many previously worked at the motor parks or as help to carry loads for market customers. Their activities expanded into acting as security for businessmen and politicians, bouncers, or men to harass tenants, loan defaulters, or the electoral process.
2. Jaguda boys
Jaguda, meaning ‘pickpockets‘, were a group of informally structured young boys based in Lagos and Ibadan whose camaraderie was grounded on age and neighborhood and whose major form of operation was against property. These boys were usually products of a broken home or have lost a breadwinner and migrated to the city to fend for themselves. Reports of juvenile offenders operating in crowded places began to reach the press in Lagos by the mid-1920s. In Ibadan they were primarily migrant juveniles living in Ekotedo area, their visible means of income is to carry loads of the passengers within railways stations and collecting bus and lorry fares on behalf of drivers.
3. THE THUGS AND TOUTS
The use of the new nomenclature, touts or thugs to describe juvenile undesirables began in the 1950s. These youths who performed visible employment working in motor parks replaced the Boma and Jaguda boys of the 1950s.These groups, made up of known bullies who also work for politicians, are closer to their modern day offspring, the Area boys. Some sources claim that they sometimes receive money from politicians to cause mayhem, destruction of properties and lives.
THE NORTHERN BOY CHILD; (THE ALMAJIRI MENACE)
Almajiri are male children in Northern Nigeria who study Islam in the almajiranci. Almajiranci has been associated with non-participation in formal education.
The Almajiri system, we were told had a genuine intention of educating the young as the intent, ab initio, through a collegiate system of sending young children as early as 4 years to strange environments to be taught religious and Arabic education through equally, a strange tutelage of a Teacher, hundreds of miles a far. Whether the intention and concept were right at inception is not the subject of debate here, but what has become of them today.
Almajiri is the most visible tragedy seen on the streets of all northern Nigerian cities and beyond. They litter at garages, ATM centers, motor parks, Go-slow gridlocks and even Church and Mosque gates.
They often end up as street urchins (area boys), male prostitutes, petty and hard criminals, garage boys and most recently, Boko Haram, Bandits as well as dangerous tools for desperate politicians to get at one another’s’ throats.
From the traditional/ religious leaders to the elites within government, corporate businesses and academia, we are all guilty of this.
We are not naïve, but afraid to say the truth. We pretend to identify with the sufferings of the Almajiri, while in reality we enjoy seeing him continue to suffer so that he becomes different with our children. We align the system to religion dogmatically, while ignoring the fault lines. We have been lying to ourselves, consciously.
THE SOUTH-EAST REGION AND THE BOYEE MENACE
Critical view at the south east region the male child is highly valued; a typical igbo parent tries to groom his son into his business line or engages him into learning trade (apprenticeship) under another business man who after some years settles the apprentice.
1. Robs him of his own dream and aspiration
2. Robs him of formal education
3. Exposes him to some hardship and suffering as an apprentice.
4. Are used to hawk for businessmen e.g
We must all accept the fact that as a society, we really need to mainstream our boys and protect them, as much as we do for our girls, while keeping the balance. Boys are becoming more vulnerable because, apart from physical abuse, including cases of sodomy, there is also the psychological torture that boys go through in patriarchal societies. Worst still is the neglect, the abandonment and recruitment into terror gangs and criminal conclaves.
Street boys are the cannon fodder and the recruitment pool for all manner of social miscreants, such as Boko Haram insurgents, armed bandits, kidnappers, Shila boys, Kalare, area papas, political thugs, street touts and related criminal gangs. As such it is our collective guilt in neglecting the boy child, which led us to the spate of insecurity bedeviling the nation from all angles and in all directions let us reflect on the dangers of neglecting the boy-child. Let us look towards taking definite actions to address the neglect of the boy child. Let us summon the courage to end the phenomenon of street children by whatever name is called. Let us protect our boys as much as we protect our girls. Inclusion means every child matters, girl or boy. The school systems should modify and remodel the boy child counseling to conform to present realities and challenges.
The above Four (4) systems, as it is, have continued to cause embarrassment and mockery to us if the truth must be told. The fate of these vulnerable young men who are denied the pathways to pursue their dreams lay on the crests of our shoulders and heads. Parents and the society must consider the boy child as also vulnerable and should be properly guided to becoming an honorable man.
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