kakaki 
ON April 24, the life of an adopted girl-child was cut short in the most brutal and avoidable way in the Igando area of Lagos. Faith, 12, who should have been nurtured, protected, and given the chance to dream, instead died at the hands of those who were meant to be her guardians.
Adopted at the age of 10, she entered what should have been a safe home. What she found instead was cruelty. Faith’s brutal minders have given child adoption a bad name.
The accounts of her final months are deeply disturbing. Faith was reportedly overburdened with chores and errands, treated like a slave, rather than a daughter. She was beaten frequently and severely.
Eventually, the sustained physical assaults took their toll. She fell ill. Even then, she was denied care. No effort was made to treat her worsening condition until it was far too late.
When she finally died, her adoptive parents rushed her to the hospital, where she was declared dead on arrival. This is reprehensible.
Faith did not deserve to die that way. Her life, like every child’s, carried promise and potential. She deserved care, education, laughter, and protection.
She deserved a future. Instead, she departed most horribly, failed by her adopters, the systems meant to safeguard her, and a society that did not intervene in time.
Faith’s ordeal risks casting a long shadow over adoption as a whole. Adoption is supposed to be a pathway to hope, especially for children whose biological parents are deceased or unable to care for them.
It is also designed to bring succour to those who are unable to have children. But when stories like this emerge, they instil fear. Who would willingly entrust children to strangers if such horrors are possible? Faith’s death may discourage many from considering adoption at all.
The very system designed to protect vulnerable children and bring joy to needy couples could be undermined by the actions of a few who abuse it. That is the tragedy within the tragedy: one child’s suffering could slam the adoption door shut for many.
This is why justice must be swift, decisive, and visible. The couple responsible for Faith’s death has been arrested. They must face the maximum punishment under the law as a necessary deterrent.
Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done. Anything less may send the wrong signal: that the abuse of children, even to the point of death, can go with a slap on the wrist.
It is sheer wickedness and utterly reprehensible to maltreat a defenceless minor. It is an even greater evil to persist in that cruelty until it results in death. Such acts must be confronted with the full force of the law. Society owes that much to Faith, and to every child who depends on adults for survival.
Yet, Faith’s case is not isolated. Across Nigeria, reports of child abuse continue to surface with alarming regularity. The forms of torture inflicted on minors are often extreme. Some children have been starved as punishment, others slashed with blades or burned with hot irons. There are even accounts of pepper being forced into their private parts. This is inhuman.