- Writer, Umar Mikail
- Name the person who wrote the story, BBC News, Abuja
One of the parents of the children who have been charged with treason by the Nigerian government as a result of protests over the cost of living said she was happy with the order of President Bola Tinubu to release them.
Fatima Muhammad said that her two children were among the children who were arrested when she sent them to receive the money that will be used to take one of them to the hospital because he is sick.
“By God, the joy we felt will not be satisfied,” said Fatima.
Leaders and groups have condemned the arrest of the children at the protest held to express anger about the cost of living from August 1 to 10, 2024.
Speaking at the Presidential Palace, the Minister of Information, Mohammed Idris, said the President said that they should be released wherever they are in Nigeria, and that they should be handed over to their parents.
Last Friday, the Nigerian Police Force arraigned 76 people before the Federal High Court in Abuja, accusing them of treason by raising the Russian flag, and asking the military to stage a coup d’état. , an allegation they both denied.
Witnesses and videos shared on social media showed how the children were limp, their bodies showing signs of starvation, before four of them cut their bodies and fell when they were about to be tried.
Fatima’s son and her sister’s son were among those arrested in Kano, while the others came from Katsina, Gombe, Abuja, Jos, and Kaduna.
“There was a fine and they were arrested in Briget,” said Fatima. “I sent them to collect the money for my phone (that I sold) on Sunday because I will take it back to the hospital.”
She said that her children’s age of 16 is because of each other’s messages.
“I didn’t go anywhere, I was struggling to find them that day, but at 11:00 at night I was called and told that their name was (the police office) Bompai. When I went, God made me see the patient, and I gave him food .”
She said that when she went she saw the cars being prepared to take them to Abuja.
“I cried, I cried and told them my child is not well, but the police told me ‘he is under arrest’, we are being deported. The other children who were arrested themselves said to me, mother, we will take care of them. and your child. I’m crying, no one listens to me like crazy.”
Later, they decided to form a group to fight for the adoption of their children as ordinary people, as Fatima explained.
‘Night at stations and mosques in Abuja’
Authorities in Nigeria did not say the day they took the people they arrested to Abuja, but they confirmed that they are all being charged there.
On Friday, the court under Justice Obiora Egwuatu granted bail to each of them in the sum of 10 million naira, and presented a person who will stand in for everyone, who she said must be a government employee with a salary level. the 15th
When she went to the Bompai police station in Kano, she was told that they would be brought back from Abuja within a week, she said.
“After a week passed, we were called on the phone and connected with them and asked to pay for the food. I barely got N2,000 to send them,” she said.
It was after this that Fatima decided to follow her children’s footsteps in Abuja, even though she did not know anyone in the federal capital.
“When I left (Abuja) I didn’t know anyone, I didn’t have anyone, I didn’t have anything – only God managed my affairs,” said Fatima.
This is what she used to do at Abuja bus stations and mosques.
“That’s how I went, I went to the mosque and spent the night, I went to the bus station and spent the night – sometimes a person comes to buy food and asks to take N500.”
‘Then I paid money and I was allowed to see my children’
Before she went to Abuja, Fatima said she was called and told that one of her children is sick. After she arrived, she always went to the place where they were kept.
“Since I came to Abuja, I have not returned home, I always go to them. Sometimes I even go to beg before I get something to take to them.
“When I first came, I was hardly allowed to see one of these children and I had to pay. Sometimes N1,000 is not even enough. you,” as she explained.
She said that when the children were young, her marriage with their father died, and he was lying there and receiving treatment from a stroke.
Human rights group Amnesty International said the arrest of the children violated international human rights laws and called on President Bola Tinubu to “immediately and unconditionally”.
Malam Isa Sanusi, the head of the group in Nigeria, told the BBC that they also asked for compensation for the “abuse and abuse the children suffered during their detention in August”.
A day after the criticism of the government, Antoni general and the attorney general of the Nigerian government, Lateef Fagbemi, asked the police force to hand over the matter to him for further investigation.
At the end of the week, the Minister of Women, Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, visited the children, where she was seen in pictures distributing water and food to them and vowing to do justice to them.
