About 250 inmates of an abandoned children’s home in Eket today staged a demonstration to protest an attempt on Wednesday by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to arrest officials of the NGO.
About 250 inmates of an abandoned children’s home in Eket today staged a demonstration to protest an attempt on Wednesday by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to arrest officials of the NGO.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });
Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN), an NGO, runs the orphanage in Eket for the stigmatized and abandoned children who are accused of witchcraft. The children, who carried placards during today’s demonstration, visited the palace of the paramount ruler of Eket, as well as the Eket Police Division to register their plight.
Some of the placards read, “We do not want to return to the streets’, ‘EFCC leave us alone,’ ‘CRARN deserves commendation and not persecutions’.
At the Eket Police Division, the Divisional Police Officer shouted at the children and dispersed them, urging them to take their complaints to the Eket Local Government Chairman or better still, EFCC.
A team of six officials of EFCC yesterday raided the premises of CRARN and arrested the Centre’s administrator.
The EFCC operatives said that they received a petition against the centre and had requested the key officials of CRARN to appear in their Lagos Office to assist the commission in its investigations of the allegation.
The Akwa Ibom government had on Sept. 9 ordered the arrest of the officials of CRARN. The state Governor, Chief Godswill Akpabio gave the order in a radio phone-in programme in reaction to a news report by Cable News Network (CNN). He accused the NGO of exaggerating the child witch syndrome in the state for monetary gain.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });