CHILD ABUSE IN THE ACTS OF WARLORDS

Fabian Amadi canvasses the strengthening of child-based laws to function as deterrent to leaders craving for war

Some years ago in the mid-1990s something remarkable happened during a special programmes at the church where I used to worship. I had come outside and was met by a man who appeared familiar but unfortunately, I couldn’t place where I knew him. He beckoned to me and requested my assistance in calling a brother for him. As I moved to do that, I turned back to ask for his name. The man displayed surprise and asked “Don’t you know me?” The question was arresting and I was immediately caught between reckoning that question as loaded with pride or accepting a situation in which a church member felt offended that one of the ministers who should have known better was not caring enough.

Since the incident took place right in our church premises, I chose to indulge the second option and tendered an unreserved apology. But when he mentioned his name, my feeling was transmogrified to the other idea of branding him a proud man. He had said with excessive confidence, “I am Yommie Johnson.” On recognizing him, I was overtaken by a severe pain of seeing a bloodstained villain standing before me. He was one of the warlords alongside Charles Taylor that started the civil war in Liberia; a civil strife which severely exterminated human lives. When the war became too hot to handle, Mr. Johnson ran to Nigeria to save his own life after triggering death and inflicting pains on many innocent people especially children and the infirm.

I almost changed my mind about running an errand for him. But I didn’t. As I dawdled hesitantly towards the Liberian man he asked for, my mind raced to a street called Idejo Street on Victoria Island in Lagos where the Liberian Embassy was situated. I used to see a lot of Liberian children aged between mid-infantile to late teenage ages walking about without destination except to beg for food and money. You would hear them say “Sir, you don’t need to give me money, just buy food for me, I have not eaten for two days.” When you bought food for the children, the way they would gobble it would prove that they were not exaggerating their hunger. Ask for their parents or family and they would respond, “I don’t know where they are. I don’t know if they are still alive, I saw a ship coming to Nigeria and ran away from the bullets flying all over the place. I had to joined everybody to escape.” 

That is now history, but what resurrected the memory is the contemporary warlord, the Russian leader called Vladmir Putin. He is at one polar end of the conflicting pulls presently rocking international affairs. With the benefit of hindsight, a clarification I may need is the position of human feeling in his driving force. That would have been irrelevant but for the fact that many of his compatriots are languishing in prison for opposing him at the onset of his war decision.  Yet let’s spotlight the fall outs of his ambition of which he had initially envisioned himself as an unopposable colossus bestriding the narrow world. The war has been causing multiple strands of casualties, the death of innocent children and the orphanage of many others. Children have been rendered inconsequential sacrifices to his ambition of remaining relevant in international politics or the fear of becoming irrelevant among world leaders strategically holding the bottleneck.

 I repeat that the present war recalls my memory of Liberian Yommie Johnson’s bloated ego. Actually, Ukrainian children may not be exposed to the same poverty level as those Liberian children who if they are still living are now men and women. What is plausible is that over the years, children in war conditions experience a plethora of nightmare across the board. This usually entails irredeemable loss of life or denials of family structure necessary for wholesome upbringing. War experience is never palatable to any child just like no part of hell is a comfortable zone.

Now, I hasten to declare my willingness to be quoted that currently between Russia and Ukraine, orphanage in its fallouts has been spiraling in collateral leaps and bounds. I could concede that simulated bold faces notwithstanding, those who ignited it find in time to secretly embrace “had I known” when it becomes clear that what was initially hoped to be an easy run over is now shrouded in an uncertain or inconsequential pyrrhic victory. What is equally too late to reverse is that innocent children are suffering what should have been avoided if natural love had partnered with wisdom or permitted external outcries to weigh down selfish plunge into showcasing “who I am”.

Let’s at this juncture, pose some questions to all the warlords of this world. What if your life had been terminated at infancy? What if your own childhood had been one of struggling for survival or confined to an orphanage home without ever escaping from your trauma of a constraining cocoon? I put it to those culpable that given the above streams of thought as their experience, they would not have chosen a path of making some innocent children miserable. Definitely, the initial target of war mongers is not the innocent minors who could get killed by stray bullets and explosives, but no review of war consequences can be complete without adding their pains to the general record.

Prove me wrong if you can, one thing characteristic of the so-called warlords is that behind their swashbuckling façade conceals a veritable cowardice. They value themselves and their family members as too coated with honey to lose their lives. They cannot arm their own with their most trusted arsenal to the battle front or expose them to the smallest piece of the quantum pain they inflict on others. The belligerent warlords as loving parents cannot stretch their imaginations to seeing their own children residing in orphanage homes. To this end, prior to unleashing their evil machinations, they send their families to other safe sides of the globe. If otherwise they are brave enough, when they foresee their security apparatus imperiled or crumbling to heavy bombardments, they generously embrace any feasible cost of escape with whatever they find in public treasury.

 Apart from that as reason why Yommie Johnson ran to Nigeria probably with his family, he was avoiding the experience of the torture he meted out to the former president of Liberia, late Samuel Doe whom he had ambushed, mutilated while alive and forced to eat his own ears before finally killing him. Imagine the mental torture of that incident to children. War incidents breed or carry along, several evils that potentially enmesh the psyche of young people as hostages for life.

So far, I have seemingly singled out Mr. Yommie Johnson for judgment simply because he came very close to me.  I am suddenly frightened that he may have genuinely repented before the God of infinite mercy and received pardon for his sins.  God had said in the Bible “thou shall not judge”.  For this, I crave God’s forgiveness; then let’s converge on what remains for those who are still brandishing their acts and bravery as warlords.  They can still make amends, sheath their swords or if you prefer to say bury the hatchet while there are still lives to save and I will keep repeating concern especially for those innocent children and their future that naturally needs soft handling.

The reason for the above plea will not be farfetched if we review once more the immediate and remote consequences that war imposes on innocent children and young people. Its major crime of causing premature death is popularly called Infanticide. Separation from families engenders serious psychological pains and aftermath. There is also the social evil of denying them formal and informal education. From some countries reports were available about several recruitments (mobilization?) of minors for war which involved at times drugging their malleable psyche to embrace violence and insensitivity leaving no room for compromise. Many of these problems potentially translate to chronic habits and irreparable end results to the society.

The encompassing word in all these is child abuse.  Have I overstretched this and severally repeated my opinion? To my “No apologies” is attached the last of the questions for the warlords: what legacy do you leave for the young people when the history of your country placed on a moral pedestal, reviews past and present leaders?  To the world generally, why can’t international legislation team up with national concurrences to expand the space of the child rights acts to accommodate intimidating roadblocks to war inciters and executors? Let me repeat my opinion once again as suggesting simply but seriously the strengthening of child-based laws to function as deterrents to leaders who could impulsively break out wars without considering its undesirable impacts on that fragile bracket of life.

Sometime ago in 2006, I had to produce a short movie to sound a warning note to children and young people because I was irked by the activities of child labour and human trafficking syndicates seriously on the rampage. To watch that movie please log onto YouTube and search for ’A Chance To Live by Febis Multi-Concepts’. Its theme music is what I consider pertinent here for Mr. Vladmir Putin with his deputy and co-warlord Nikolai Patrushev who are the mighty dramatis personae in news currently.  When I wrote and composed the sound track, I titled it “Serve your heart to all”. I will appreciate any means of leveraging that music to arrest their conscience towards calling for peace and bringing to an end what they started. I wish I could translate it to Russian language (or Ukrainian language if there is such a linguistic affinity as exists between Portuguese and Spanish) for their young ones to perform to the war leaders.

 Peace is overtly needful with due cognizance of children and other frail categories on both sides of the fence.

 Amadi is Creative Consultant,

Febis Multi-Concepts

Lagos