By Itodo Daniel Sule
The Nigerian Children’s Parliament has urged the federal government to channel a significant percentage of the savings accrued from the removal of the petroleum subsidy into improving and expanding access to quality education at all levels in the 2025 budget.
The parliament also called on the federal government to allocate a defined proportion of 50 per cent of the subsidy savings for the rehabilitation and enhancement of the nation’s healthcare sector, with a special focus on maternal and child health services.
This, it said, would reduce mortality rates, while also providing affordable and accessible healthcare services for the most vulnerable.
These were among some of the resolutions reached by the parliament at its session in Abuja on Wednesday, which was presided by the deputy speaker, Ibrahim Zanna.
These resolutions followed the adoption of a motion titled, “Urgent Need for the Nigerian Government to Reinvest Savings from the Removal of Petroleum Subsidy into the Education, Health, and Welfare of Children for Sustainable Development,” moved by the leader of the parliament, Ubkongyamba Hassan.
The session was part of activities to mark the National Children Leadership Conference organised by the Children of Africa and Values Development Initiative in Abuja.
The children’s parliament also advocated the establishment of dedicated welfare programmes aimed at addressing the nutritional, psychological, and social needs of Nigerian children, using part of the savings to fund school feeding initiatives, promotion of child rights, and child protection services.
The parliament in its resolution urged relevant Ministries, Departments, and Agencies of government to put in place a transparent framework to track and publicly disclose the expenditure of these savings in accordance with set targets and measurable outcomes, thereby ensuring accountability and trust among the citizens, particularly children:
The Children’s Parliament encouraged collaboration with civil society organisations, international development partners, and local stakeholders to maximise the impact of the funds and ensure sustainable and inclusive development outcomes that benefit all segments of the Nigerian population, especially the youth, children and marginalised groups.
It urged the federal and state governments to urgently ensure that functional children’s parliaments are established at all levels of government and that the federal government and United Nations should adopt the CALDEV Africa National Children Leadership Conference as model policy innovation programme for children’s leadership development.
Founder of CALDEV, Hon. Bamidele Salam, in his remark, stressed the need for children to be active participants in shaping the future.
He said the overriding objective of the programme was on the need to converse the largest and most diverse gathering of children leaders across Nigeria to promote national cohesion, loyalty, unity, integration as well as foster patriotism among the participants who cut across the North, South, East and West of the country.
Chairman of the House Committee on Women Affairs, Kafilat Ogbara, said young people should be given a voice to properly prepare them for the future.
She said there was a need to get young people involved in everything in society and commended the organisers of the programme for the gesture.
“Most times children are left behind. I am happy for this national leadership conference, being organised today in Abuja by Hon Bamidele Salam. We need to start including our young people in everything that we do. The leadership level they need to attain would be attained if they are more involved,” she said.
Country Director of Plan International Nigeria, Charles Usie, stressed the need for children to be educated.
He urged the children to build relationships that would help them achieve their objective in life.
He urged them to stay away from associations that would not help them.
