Under a scorching afternoon sun in Ibadan, nine-year-old Saidat sits by her mother, Zainab, under the shadow of the Mokola bridge. Her young face, hardened by experience, scans the crowd with hopeful eyes. With her mother’s frail hand wrapped around hers, they wondered if anyone would pause to notice them.
Today, like every day, they wait, hand outstretched, hoping for kindness from strangers. Saidat’s gaze drifted upward, meeting the sympathetic glance of a passerby. For an instant, she felt if this stranger would be their lifeline or just another face in the crowd. When the passerby drops them a 100 naira note, they whisper a prayer of gratitude.
Just two years ago, Saidat had a home in Kurfa Danya, a village in Zamfara, northwestern Nigeria. That life was shattered when armed bandits stormed the village, killing her father and forcing her family to flee. The traumatic incident set the family on a journey of agony. With a heavy heart, Zainab, 39, took her young children and fled home.
Zainab remembers the flight with vivid details. “My husband was everything to us,” she says, as tears well up in her eyes. “He was killed by the bandits, so we ran for our lives.” According to Zainab, her husband, Ibrahim, was killed in January 2022.
Now, Saidat, her mother, her seven-year-old brother, Faruk, and her four-year-old sister, Mutumina, live on the streets of Ibadan. They beg for food, sleep, and live on the street and cling to a tenuous hope of safety.
A Life Unraveled
When Zainab took her children and told them they were leaving home, she promised them they were going to find safety, food, and a future. The journey from Zamfara to Ibadan was harrowing, marked by exhaustion, hunger, and fear. Clutching her children, Zainab relied on the mercy of strangers and overcrowded buses.
Once in Ibadan, Zainab turned to her brother Hassan, who lives in Sabo, a neighborhood dominated by Hausas. Arriving here, one of Zainab’s promises was partially fulfilled; they found safety. But the promises of a filled stomach and a bright future seemed as elusive as ever. Despite finding safety, their basic needs remained unmet. Hassan’s income from fruit hawking barely covers his expenses, let alone those of his newly arrived relatives.
“All I wanted was a safe place for my children,” Zainab says. “But we’ve found safety, and it comes with a price. Now, there’s nothing for us.” Saidat and her siblings now join their mother in begging daily, hoping for scraps to fill their empty stomachs.
Each time the children cried from hunger, it broke Zainab’s heart. She had nothing to give. Their food and livelihood were gone. The children’s education was gone too. With Saidat’s education coming to an end, she reminisced about her father. “We miss our father so much. My father wanted me to be an engineer,” Saidat says. “But now, I don’t know if I’ll ever go back to school.”
Saidat’s young brother, Faruk, expresses the same frustration. “I miss my father. He made us laugh. I wish he was here,” he says.
The Toll of Conflict on Children
Over a decade of violence from extremist and rebellious insurgent groups has forced millions of families to flee for safety in northern Nigeria. The mass murder of civilians has been done by radical groups such as Boko Haram.
Children have suffered the most from this violence and devastation, according to concerning statistics. By the 2021 UN Development Programme tally, an estimated 350,000 people, mostly children under the age of five, were killed during a 12-year conflict in northeast Nigeria. Shockingly, almost 90% of the total deaths are children under five years of age, roughly 324,000, with about 170 young lives lost each day.
Thus, according to a 2023 report from UNICEF, out of the 7.7 million exposed to the dire effects of armed conflict in Nigeria, 60% were estimated to be children. The Boko Haram insurgency has further displaced over two million people since 2009 and caused one of the most appalling humanitarian crises worldwide.
These acts of violence have also spawned a number of armed groups and gangs over these years that include bandits and have spearheaded widespread atrocities. The tactics include suicide bombings, abductions, torture, rape, forced marriages, and the recruitment of child soldiers.
Many of the affected make hazardous journeys, usually in the middle of the night, and literally with nothing but the clothes on their backs as they flee violence in the north. They flee without food or water. This journey is disastrous for kids, who often suffer dehydration, exhaustion, and traumatic experiences. And upon arrival in new environments, they face new hardships: hunger, exploitation, and abuse.
A Mother’s Unyielding Resolve
At the roadside in Ibadan’s Eleyele market, 34-year-old Fatima Mohammed sits with her two children by her side. Displacement has forced her into a daily fight for survival, one she never imagined. Fatima’s face, once bright with hope, now reflects the toll of constant struggle.
Originally from Faduma Kolomdi, a village in Borno, Fatima fled to Ibadan after a Boko Haram attack that destroyed her home. “They came in the night,” Fatima recounts the 2020 ordeal. “They shot at us and burnt houses. There was no time to think; we grabbed the children and ran. We left everything behind.”
The family fled to Ibadan, seeking refuge at a friend’s abode. Upon getting to Ibadan, her husband, Sayi, worked as a well digger, but a road accident eventually led to his death. “His death crushed me,” Fatima said. “I felt lost, alone, and responsible for our children’s survival.”
With no other choice, Fatima and her two young children, 4-year-old Issa and 2-year-old Usman, began begging on the streets, struggling to find food and shelter. “I want my children to have a future,” she says. “But for now, we just want to survive.”
The lines of concern etch the face of Fatima, who every day rummages for food, praying to fill the tummies of her children. In her village, she sold vegetables and complemented her husband in providing for the household. Now, she searches the streets for scraps, her children’s eyes wide with hunger.
Since her husband’s death, she’s done many things to provide for her children, but Nigeria’s living hardship squeezed every little bit of money she made. In Sabo market, she once sold food as a maid, but a recurring high blood pressure affected her efficiency and made her stop working.
And with no support, she had little choice but to take to the streets. For her, this means an abrupt end to her children’s hunger. “That’s when I hit the streets,” she says. “I had no choice. I couldn’t watch my children suffer anymore.”
Road to Poverty and Despair
Stories like that of Zainab and Fatima abound in Nigeria, where families uprooted from homes face poverty and hunger and struggle daily for survival. And an economic crisis clutching the nation further dims hopes. The World Bank’s data indicate that 87 million Nigerians live below the poverty line, the second largest poor population globally, with India leading.
Apart from this, the outlook for the economy of Nigeria in 2024 is quite dicey on a number of fronts, including levels of poverty. According to the 2024 Economic Outlook report by PwC, the level of poverty is expected to increase this year to 38.8%. With spiraling inflation, survival has also become even more precarious without homes or stable work.
Also, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria, the headline inflation rate increased to 32.7% from 32.2% in August this year. Besides, food inflation increased to 37.8% in September from 37.5% in August.
Fawas, 14, and his sister, Hauwa, 16, were forced to become street children, compelled to beg for alms and run odd jobs for survival in the Gbagi market area of Ibadan. They had fled Zamfara State six years ago as violence ravaged the northern region and restarted life in Ibadan, where their father, Umaru, became a bike rider.
Tragedy then struck as Umaru passed away from a short illness. His wife, Jamila, was now faced with the burden of their children alone. Jamila was selling pap and akara initially, but due to the economic downturn in Nigeria, she couldn’t keep herself doing that. She stopped as sales kept reducing and old age took its toll on her. The inability to pay house rent marked the final nail in the coffin when their landlord evicted them, leaving the family homeless.
The children watched as their home and livelihood were being swept away and resorted to seeking refuge in an unfinished building. Fawas and Hauwa’s education suffered too. “Sometimes, I send them to school with just a cup of water in their bellies,” Jamila confessed. “On good days, when we have something, they go to school. But when there’s nothing, they stay home.”
Desperate to survive, the children took on odd jobs—fetching water for food sellers, washing plates, and begging on the streets. “I used to be proud, providing for my children,” Jamila said. “Now, I’m ashamed. I can’t even feed them.”
Fawas and Hauwa’s lives are marked by poverty and hardship. “People look at us like we’re not human,” Fawas says, while Hauwa adds, “I remember when Mama sold well, and we had food. Now, we go to bed hungry.” Jamila joins them on the streets, her aged body struggling with every step. “We’re not beggars by choice,” she pleaded. “We’re victims of circumstance. The economy has failed us.”
Jamila’s family is not alone. On every street corner, in every market, and beneath every bridge, countless families share similar tales of struggle. Children, once filled with laughter and promise, now beg alongside their parents, their childhoods lost to the struggle of conflict and poverty.
Childhoods Abandoned
As Nigeria’s economy falters, displaced families face a bleak reality. Children are losing their childhoods to a daily struggle for survival. For the children, living on the streets brings its own terrors. Many of these children risk exploitation and abuse on the streets, where gangs and traffickers prey on the vulnerable. “Sometimes thugs come and scare us,” Saidat confides. “They threaten that they will do something terrible to us if we don’t give them food and our money.”
Street gangs, traffickers, and abusers abound in the streets, preying on the children’s weaknesses. These kids are exposed to some of the most sinister facets of society there.
For them, life on the streets has transformed into an exhausting cycle of fear, hunger, and deprivation. The children are in dire need of education, healthcare, and protection; the emotional trauma caused by displacement, harsh conditions of living, and psychological traumas is beyond their coping mechanism.
The daily struggle is a stark reminder of how a nation has failed in its most fundamental commitment: protection of its weakest. “We just want to live. We want to be safe, to have a home, to send our children to school. Is that too much to ask?” Jamila begged, not only for herself but for the many families just like hers that have been forgotten and left in obscurity.
In the next and final report of this series, we will uncover what day-to-day life is like for Nigeria’s displaced children: how this crisis scars their health, how they’re dealing with it, and how the need for urgent intervention grows.
