MEMO TO LAGOS:
JUSTICE IS A WOMAN
Again, my theory states that whatever has advantages does
accommodate its own measure of disadvantages. This time around, I present the case study of
the state of Lagos, Nigeria with its Child Right law. Although I should say this is one case where
the disadvantage totally outnumbers the advantage. 
This law as
advertised by the state government heralds that parents must make their children
have primary school education because that level of education is now free in
the state. 
And where parents rather than send their wards to school
choose to send them to the streets to hawk wares that such parent would be made
to dance to the music of the law which comes in the tune of a N200,000 (Two
Hundred Thousand Naira) fine or the option of spending time in prison. 
Advantage: every child in the state has access to free
primary education.
Disadvantage”S” (yes, disadvantage with a capital “S” at
the end):
*How free is free primary education when teachers have
their list of regular unofficial demands from these pupils? After all, these teachers enjoy boasting that
if you complain that education is expensive why not try ignorance.
*Catch a parent or parents that break the law, put them in
prison, who caters for the children that the government so eagerly wants to
provide free education for? Not to talk of the fact that the prisons are further congested with a law that should have a better punitive measure.
*Is it a parent that cannot pay for his / her family’s
daily feeding of not up to a thousand Naira that would be able to pay the sum
of N200,000 (Two hundred thousand Naira) fine?
*Are these punitive measures not so unrealistic that it
makes mockery of the law?
*Where the law is mocked based on the fact that its
punitive measure is outrageous, is it sustainable?
*And where the economy does not improve to cater for those
below the middle class is it the free books that the kids get at school that
they will eat when they get home?
*One more question, what law does the government have against a child that chooses not to want to stay in class for a free primary education?
Yes, while I acknowledge that parents that send their
wards hawking wares to the streets put them in harm’s way, it does not take
away the fact that the law does not have a human face real enough to dwell in
the society of humans living in the state.
And the last time I checked, Justice is still a woman with
a human face.
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