They have lost both parents -- what some may call double orphans. Chidera Aba and her sister Edith Aba live in Amalla Ifuruoka Community in Udenu Council Area of Enugu State.

Sunday Sun visited Chidera and Edith at their friend’s squalid shack. They have to live with their friend because they do not have a home nor the luxury of having three meals a day. “We do not eat when we want to. If our parents were alive, two of us would have been schooling at the same time. Chidera wants to read Computer Science.”

The wind that shattered their lives blew in 2000. The cold hands of death clutched away their parents: “I am 18 years old”, Chidera said, and pointing in the direction of a teenage girl. “That is Edith. She is 15. Our father died on October 1, 2000, while our mother died in April 2001, six months after.”

Chidera, too eager to tell her story, spilled-out the words. “I was nine years old when our father took ill. The sickness lasted for many years, but our mother was only sick for three months before she died. I was in primary six, while Edith was in Primary five at the Ifruoka Primary School, Aguba-Amalla Community in Udenu Council Area.”

They were left in the care of their grandmother, a 70 year-old widow.

“When our parents died, we moved to live with our maternal grandmother, but again six months after, that was on November 21, 2003, she also died” That threw them into a world of despair, destitution and uncertainty.

Ordeal

“When I finished Primary School in 2001, I started secondary education at the Ambassador Secondary School, Umungari in the same Council Area. To meet up with my mates, I skipped class 1 and started from class 2, but when it was time for tuition, I dropped out because I could not afford the tuition fee.”

Statistics

Dr. Ochi Ibe, the former Senior Programme Officer at the ENHANSE, a USAID funded project says there is a growing army of orphans in Nigeria. She puts the figures at one and half million (1.5million). Dr. Ibe is quick to define the different categories of orphans. “Orphans are children under 18 who have lost one or both parents for various reasons including accidents, civil conflicts and diseases such as HIV/AIDS.”

According to Ibe, orphans have been categorized based on their own peculiar circumstances. “Children under age 18 whose mothers have died are called “maternal orphans; those under 18 whose fathers have died are “paternal orphans,” while “double orphans” are those who have lost both parents.

There is another category she refers to as social orphans. “They include children whose parents are alive, but for one reason or the other are incapacitated and unable to look after their children. Hence the scale of work needed to care and support orphans and vulnerable children is quite grand”, she adds.

Children in these categories, including those like Chidera and Edith often face difficult times trying to make ends meet. In some cases, they are abused or used as child labourers.

After Granny’s death

“When my grandmother died, we moved to live with a prophetess in a Pentecostal church. We were hawking fried pastries and salt at Ogbulaffor market. Shortly after our stay, she asked us to quit.”

Encounter with wicked Uncle and getting on

“When we returned from the prophetess’s house, we told our uncle that we wanted to move into our father’s house, but he told us that the house had been sold.”

Asked further about how they survive, only re-opened their emotional wounds. Tears streaming down her cheeks, Edith murmured, “We buy raw cashew nuts from the owners, fry and sell. Sometimes, we make N50 profit. To augment it, we weed grass for people in their farms and they give us food in return.”

“Children on the Brink”, a report authored by UNICEF confirms that care and support for Orphans and Vulnerable Children is a unique challenge for the country.

According to the report, their needs are many and different. At present, the level of care and support for them in Nigeria are makeshift -- with many initiatives being donor-driven -- that is, funded from external organizations such as CEDPA, which works to address economic and gender gap issues.

Sunday Sun checks show that Nigeria’s Policy on HIV/AIDS is a 42-page document that is the basis of the public response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Nigeria.

The document acknowledges that it takes a village to raise a child.
But OVC advocates say that expression of commitment raises more questions than answers about the level of support and care currently provided to OVCs.

They say with the growing number of orphans in the country, Nigeria should really think through and understand the long-term implications of OVCs. The report insists that the National Policy must be stepped up from grand declarations and proposals to tangible interventions and concrete action.

Such interventions, they say should include education most especially for girls who have been orphaned.

It’s a concern that the Executive Director of Action Health Incorporated, Dr. Uwem Esiet feels strongly about. “That is our worry. In many homes, there is the misconception that if the resources are limited; boys should be sent to school. This negates the principle of equity and infringes on the rights of the female child. We have always campaigned against this, but several cultural practices perpetuate the act.”

For now, a Non-Governmental Organisation, Mediating for the Less Privileged and Women Development (MEWOOD), has secured a scholarship for Edith to finish her secondary education, but having their daily meal remains a nightmare.

Most Pressing Demand

Even though they need their father’s house, they can’t confront their uncle: “We don’t want him to unleash terror on us. That is why we don’t want you to confront him.

However, Sunday Sun tactically sought their uncle’s consent, who simply hid under poverty and their gender as reason for his action: “Women do not inherit property in Igboland,” he bluntly told Sunday Sun. Further probing by the reporter seemed to fall on deaf ears.

But a source, who craved anonymity, told Sunday Sun, that the location of the house was the attraction: “That place where the house is located is strategic. It is not the house that the chief who bought is looking at, but the land. No body will talk because of the caliber of person that bought it,” the source told this reporter.

MEWOODS intervention

The President of MEWOOD, Dr. Betty Agujiobi, has also intervened on behalf of the children.

“It was in 2004, when we visited Udenu Council Area to assist the less priviledged. Following our presentations, so many orphans were presented to us, and then we commenced a serious of research to identify indigent orphans. It was during the study that we identified them. So in the course of our intervention, we were able to secure scholarship for Edith, and advised her to change school to a public school. Now she is in Senior Secondary 1, in Community Secondary School, Amala.The change to a community School is to enable us pay her fees.”

A member of the committee for Orphans formed by MEWOOD, Mr. Nwoko, acknowledged the orphan’s plight, but was quick to note that it’s committee lacked the legal backing to intervene in the sale of their parent’s house.

“We are aware. What we do as members of the committee is to ensure that facilities brought for orphans, like the palm kernel-processing machine donated by the United Nations Children’s Fund are secured. From the workshops organized by MEWOOD, we ensure that equal opportunity is given to all that are supposed to use the facility.”

Subscribe to our newsletter

Make a contribution

Come work with us

Visit our press room