In its effort to clamp down on illegal homes, the Imo State Government says it has uncovered 257 illegal baby factories in the state.
The state government has also recovered a number of children, according to the Special Assistant to the Governor on Non-Governmental Organisations and Allied Matters, Simeon Nwulu.
Nwulu, who disclosed this in Owerri on Friday, lamented that the number of illegal homes in the state was worrisome.
He said his office had embarked on visitations to the 27 local government areas in the state and found out that a lot of social homes were fake NGOs.
He said, “We’re doing our best to ensure such a thing does not exist in our society anymore. We’ve revoked so many fake homes. Out of 272 homes across the state, only 15 are genuine, others are fake.
“Some of them are registered with the government but their activities are not genuine and we’ve seized their licences. Very soon, we will be charging some of them to court over their nefarious activities.
“At the same time, this office has moved to ensure we stop illegal sales of children because the rate at which children are being marketed and sold like ordinary articles of trade is very alarming. At a peanut, the destiny of a child is destroyed and most of these adopters are not able to take care of these children.”
Nwulu advised churches in the state to get deeply involved in building motherless babies’ homes and old people’s homes, adding that prominent individuals in the society could adopt such children.
“I am glad some churches have shown interest in partnering government on that. But we’re asking them to make the environment very conducive for the children and not to use it to make money because we know that nobody can take care of the children more than the church.
“We are going from house-to house to appeal to people to adopt these children because we have over 2000 motherless children in different homes whose future seems very bleak without hope. As someone God has blessed, even if you have 10 children, please try and give these kids life and hope”, he appealed.
He also disclosed that his office was working hard to ensure NGOs such as churches start fulfilling their mandate such as building institutions to help the needy and the poor.
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