The wife of Kaduna State Governor, Hadiza El-Rufai, on Thursday urged Nigerians to imbibe the habit of adopting orphans so as to chart better future for them.
Mrs El-Rufai made the appeal at the inauguration of Magajin Gari orphanage home in Kaduna, renovated by the state government.
“Well-meaning Nigerians should come forward to please try and see if they could adopt one or two orphans please.
”We want to encourage you to take them out of the orphanages to your homes so as to make them more meaningful to the society.
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” No matter how well run an orphanage is, we really do not want our children to grow up there; it can never be as a child growing up in a family with mother and father.
”So we don’t want our children to remain in the orphanages until they grow up, as people will look down on them.”
According to her, the children need affection and care, not only food or clothes, they also need motherly affection and they need to be engaged.
”So I will call on everybody, whatever your situation in life there is a way you can contribute to the orphans, its not just about money,” she said.
She thanked the State Commissioner of Women Affairs, Hafsat Baba for her efforts in ensuring that the welfare of women and children are been protected in the state.
Earlier, Mrs Baba had said that the state government had come up with regulatory framework to regulate all activities of orphanage home in the state.
Mrs Baba said the ministry would also conduct tours to various orphanage homes to ensure that they “conform with the rules and regulations we are going to give out to them,
”The child protection law and the regulatory framework they have to go through it, and we are giving them time to conform with it, after which we will close down any orphanage that failed to conform and also take them to court.”
She said the Ministry would ensure proper monitoring of orphanage homes operating in the state so as to control their activities also to ensure that the children are not used for trafficking.
According to her the state runs an open government so every orphanage must be run with transparency, while the statement of account of the orphanages must be open for people to see.
Mrs Baba added that the ministry would monitor and ensure that the children getting what they supposed to get.
She said a lot of the orphanage homes have been turned to business ventures were children sold or trafficked.
The Chairman, Kaduna North Local Government, Sale Shaibu, who donated N1 million to the orphanage, thanked the state government for renovating it and stressed the need for wealthy Nigerians to support government efforts in catering for orphans.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the Magajin Gari orphanage home has a total of 24 children.
NAN
