The Yobe State Police Command has cautioned parents and guardians against abandoning their children and wards.
The Command’s Spokesman, ASP Dungus Abdulkarim, stated this while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria in Damaturu.
Abdulkarim lamented that the warning became necessary because of the recent case where three children, aged between five years and seven years, were abandoned in Damaturu.
Abdulkarim said: “Investigations conducted by the command revealed that they came all the way from Mafa, a border town between Nigeria and Niger, to Kukareta and walked for about 30km to Damaturu.
“From all indications, parents of the two girls and the boy had prepared them for this adventure because they bought them new clothes and shoes.
“They said that their father gave them N5,000, which they used in boarding a vehicle to Biu, but the driver, for unknown reasons, decided to drop them in Kukareta.”
Abdulkarim stated that child abandonment was dangerous as it could expose children to sexual abuses or recruitment by bandits.
Abdulkarim said: Even, if parents have financial challenges, the best thing to do is to contact traditional rulers or local authorities for support instead of abandoning their children and putting their lives at risk.”
He said that the rescued children had been handed over to the Ministry of Youth Sports and Social Development.