I have always argued that the law with minors needs to be reviewed because of what goes on these days with supposed minors.
IMAGE CREATED BY ME USING DALL.E 3
Legally, you cannot arrest or convict a person until they are 18 years of age, as that is the age an individual is considered an adult to be held responsible for their actions and punished for their misdeed.
Ideally, the minors who are offenders of the law are kept in a remand home for discipline and mental reevaluation, but we do not have such capacity in abundance in Nigeria.
So a minor is often left to walk freely without any conviction or punishment, simply because they are tag to not have the mental capacity to make decisions, process situations properly or give consent.
Thus, they are not made to face any consequences or repercussions of their actions and misdeed.
Over the years, we witness so many badly behaved teens commit atrocities like they are above the law. Their parents also do not help matters as they fail to be responsible for their children.
Then there is the law and the society who do not take into consideration punishment of a minor or even their parents who has been found wanting.
Often time, it is the one tagged an adult who is left to solely face punishments for a misdeed that he/she just might be framed for. These ladies and gentlemen, are the grey areas that we fail to acknowledge in administering justice.
The thing is, adults can be predators as much as minors can be mischievous.
Back then in Uni, I had this roommate who was into prostitution but branded as runs.
She was really young at the time and her age was staggering between 14 and 15years. Ideally, such an individual should still be under close supervision of her guardian or parents.
I doubt she should even be in Uni to begin with but she was, and then she landed a wealthy oil magnate in my state.
With the way this girl has branded and paraded herself as an adult, you would not even for once imagine she was barely 15.
Then the man asked her how old she was and even requested to see her birth certificate before engaging in anything intimate with her.
Y'all would not believe that this girl forged her birth certificate that she was 21 years old. Being that the legal age of consent and whatnot is 18, to the man he's with an adult, without knowing he's been tricked and was with a minor instead.
Then there was a friend who walked in on two children age 5 and 7 years old initiating intimacy.
From the look of things, the girl who is 5, happens to be the initiator.
Unsure of what she was seeing, she hid to get to the bottom of the matter, then she saw the girl undress and urging the boy to do same.
Immediately the boy was undressing, she came out of hiding and this girl ran to the room shutting the door. My friend scolded the boy and sent him home. Apparently, the girl's mother was inside sleeping.
The way the girl slammed the door when she ran into the room woke her mother up who came out to enquire what's going on.
When my friend told the mother what she had saw, the mother was furious and gave the girl a good whooping.
When the grandmother returned from the market, she met the girl reading her bible and reciting the rosary of which delighted her heart, but then it was all a ploy by the little girl to manipulate the grandmother.
When the grandmother was told what happened, the little girl started crying and swearing with the bible that my friend and her mother was lying against her, that she has been reading the bible and reciting her rosary since the grandmother left for the market.
The grandmother being very religious immediately believed the little girl and started facing my friend to not portray her canal life to her granddaughter.
My friend was given quit notice because of the incident as the grandmother was the owner of the house. When the girl's mother wanted to defend my friend, the grandmother asked if she had seen them she said no but..
The grandmother shut her up immediately, that since she didn't see them she had no right to act on hearsay.
As my friend narrated the story to me, she felt hurt and I told her I believed her because I have seen first hand what this children are capable of which will be story for another day.
Other times, children will be going astray and adults will be laughing or defending them that they are just kids they don't have sense or know what they are doing and this is where the problem lies.
Children get exposed to all sort real quick, and should be treated accordingly irrespective of age because if we keep exonerating bad behavior due to the age, there will be little or no room for the minor's learning process to evolve positively.
I will always say, minors are not always naive, they know what they are doing.
PS
My opinion is not in anyway supporting adults who take advantage of minors, they should be punished severely and not escape the full wrath of the law as they are part of the problem.
