Posted by By Babatunde Bodunrin and Eniafe Abiodun on
ALTHOUGH street urchins popularly called area boys may not be forced to relocate to the Tekunle Rehabilitation and Skills Development Centre, Ita-Oko, the other option for any of them who refuses to do so voluntarily is to leave Lagos.
ALTHOUGH street urchins popularly called area boys may not be forced to relocate to the Tekunle Rehabilitation and Skills Development Centre, Ita-Oko, the other option for any of them who refuses to do so voluntarily is to leave Lagos.
That was the Lagos Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu during a visit with the State Executive Council to assess the centre on Monday.
The governor, in a bid to tackle the menace of the area boys and reduce poverty at the grassroots, set up the rehabilitation centre located near Ise, Lekki Peninsula.
The 4,200-square-metre centre had facilities for training residents in fabrication, carpentry, weaving and agriculture, a detoxification unit, clinic and residence for 200 as well as a staff quarters.
Tinubu said government was set to rid the state of vagrants and miscreants who constantly terrorise the people and the environment.
He said the state would equip the centre, accessible only by sea from the Ise community in Lekki.
His words: "They will be detoxified and rehabilitated there. The area boys must be ready to learn and take their future in their hands and we are ready to give them not just the fish, but teach them to fish as well."
Restating government policy of not forcing any of the area boys to relocate, Tinubu declared:
"We'll get them here as mothers and leaders, but if there is no response, they have to leave Lagos."
He said many of the area boys were merely stranded in Lagos where they had come to seek opportunities and needed to be helped, adding that many of them were not addicted to drugs as people tend to believe.
He said miscreants brought to the centre would spend at least six months learning trades, saying the period would not be the same for all of them.
"Rehabilitation is not a factor of time, but a factor of response," Tinubu said, adding that people who pass through the centre would be given grants to become self-employed or made employable.
The governor further said that the pilot scheme would be for males only, while a female unit would be established at another location near the area.
The location of the centre was used for slave trade and it has seven hostels capable of housing 200 people. It is expected to turn out youths yearly.
It has facilities for skills acquisition, religious worship, classrooms, laundry and agricultural component.
The agricultural component has capacity for a 10,000-bird poultry, a fishpond capable of holding 2,000 fishes and a snail farm capable of breeding 1,000 snails.