The founders of the Du Merci Centres for vulnerable children have launched a petition calling for the return of 16 children who have been in the custody of the Kano State Government since December 2019.

The 16 children were among 27 seized from the Du Merci Centres in Kano and Kaduna States following the arrest of the centres’ co-founder and their adopted father, Professor Solomon Musa Tarfa, on Christmas Day in 2019. The Kano State Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development subsequently placed them in the government-run Nasarawa Children’s Home in Kano City, where they have experienced mistreatment, ostracism and pressure to convert.

While the 11 older children were subsequently returned, the younger ones have remained in the government-run children’s home, despite the professor’s acquittal in June 2021 of ‘abducting children from their legal guardians and confining them in an unregistered orphanage.’ 

There are also ongoing concerns regarding the medical care of the children still in government custody. In the case of one of the children, who suffered severe burns in a fire accident at the orphanage, the Du Merci Centre bore the brunt of the costs of his food and medical costs for over seven months. CSW is also aware that the children in the orphanage struggle to receive timely medical attention when they fall ill, often receive expired medication, and cannot access nutritious food that would assist their recovery.

Following strenuous and ongoing efforts by Professor Tarfa and his wife and orphanage co-founder Mercy to secure the children’s release at the Kano State High Court, during hearings on 28 November 2023 and 15 February 2024 the presiding judge in High Court 12, Bompai Complex, Kano City, instructed the Ministry of Women Affairs and the Tarfas to reach an out-of-court settlement about the children’s release.  

Following several appeals to the Office of the Kano State Attorney General and a direct petition to the State Governor, an agreement was finally reached between the Du Merci Centre and the Ministry of Women Affairs stipulating the formal handover of the children to the Tarfas should take place on or before 19 March 2025. The agreement was filed at the Kano State High Court, which issued a consent judgement.

The date of the formal handover was subsequently shifted from 19 to 20 March. However, on 20 March, the Commissioner for Women Affairs informed those in attendance that the handover had been suspended, as the Attorney General of Kano State had been mandated by governor to oversee the process once an inter-ministry review of the court’s decision had been conducted. This review is still pending.

The petition laments the government’s efforts to set aside the High Court’s consent judgement and includes a call for ‘the immediate return of all 16 children’, an official investigation ‘into the human rights abuses and mistreatment of the children’, and ‘compensation and reparations for the trauma and suffering endured by the children and their caregivers, as well as contempt of court.’

CSW’s Founder President Mervyn Thomas said: ‘CSW stands with the Tarfas in calling for the immediate return of the 16 remaining children who have now been unjustly separated from them for over five and a half years. We insist that the Kano State government, which is currently disregarding the court’s instructions to return these children to the Tarfas’ care, must make reparations to this family for the years of trauma and injustice to which they have been subjected through needlessly prolonged legal proceedings and the appalling mistreatment of these children whilst in the government’s so-called “care”.’

Note to Editors:

1.      In June 2021 the United Nations (UN) Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded that Professor Tarfa and the 16 children had been detained arbitrarily. The Working Group called for the children’s immediate release, adding that the Tarfas and the 16 children were entitled to ‘compensation and other reparations, in accordance with international law.’

2.      The Tarfas’ petition is dated 4 August and is addressed to 40 recipients, including the President of Nigeria, the Senate President, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Inspector General of Police, the Chief Justice and Attorney General of Nigeria, the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), the Minister for Women Affairs and Social Development, the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Human Rights Commission and the Governor of Kano State.