The daycare system in Nigeria, designed to offer respite to working parents, has become a potential breeding ground for abuse and neglect. With incidents ranging from caregivers drugging children to keep them docile, to depriving them of food as punishment, these supposed safe spaces for children are becoming perilous, GODFREY GEORGE writes
Two weeks after Mrs Felicia Onwubiko’s mother-in-law, Rose, left her Port Harcourt home for Asaba, Delta State, she found herself overwhelmed with the task of caring for her newborn alone.
Her husband, a civil engineer, was often away working offshore and barely around to help. With her maternity leave about to expire in just four days, Onwubiko felt the mounting pressure to return to her insurance job.
The company had already extended her leave due to her lack of support, but time had run out. She had to find a solution fast.
Distraught and confused, Onwubiko racked her brain for anyone in her family who could help care for her five-month-old baby while she returned to work. But her options were limited. Her mother had passed away long before she got married, leaving no maternal figure to lean on.
Her elder sister was already juggling the demands of raising her three children, the eldest of whom was just eight years old. Her closest friend, also a busy professional working at a financial institution, had her hands full with twin toddlers. There was no one available to assist her.
Onwubiko briefly entertained the idea of hiring a live-in maid to stay at home with her baby, attend to her needs, and rock her to sleep. However, her husband was firmly against it. They had had their fair share of bad experiences with maids early in their marriage.
“The first one we hired in 2017, just after we got married, tried to seduce my husband,” she recalls with a shake of her head. “I was the one who packed her things and asked her to leave. Since then, my husband and I agreed – we won’t have any live-in maids. If we hire domestic help, it’s strictly for working hours, no overnight stays.”
With that option off the table, Onwubiko turned to her next best hope: the daycare system. She began searching through Port Harcourt for a reputable crèche. But what she found was disheartening. The daycare centres that were within reasonable proximity to her home were either far too expensive or inconvenient.
“One crèche asked me to pay N200,000 because I wouldn’t be picking my baby up by 3 pm like the other parents. I get off work late, so I would only be able to pick her up at 7 pm. They said they’d need to pay a staff member overtime to stay that long,” she explains, frustration tingling in her voice.
As her return-to-work date drew closer, Onwubiko felt the weight of uncertainty pressing down on her.
On the day of her resumption, with no final childcare solution in sight, she decided to take her baby with her to work. Perhaps she could appeal to her human resources director for more time to figure things out. But when she arrived at the office, holding her child in her arms, she was greeted with an unexpected twist.
Before she had the chance to hand in her letter of extension of maternity leave in person, the HR officer asked her if she had checked her email that morning. Onwubiko admitted she hadn’t.
“As my colleagues were cooing over my baby, touching her here and there, I sat down at a system to quickly check my email,” she recalls. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing – I had been transferred to Eleme, another local government area in Rivers State.”
Although the email stated that the transfer came with a promotion, it was the last thing Onwubiko wanted at that moment. The thought of commuting to Eleme while still trying to sort out childcare was almost too much to bear.
“I was so confused,” she says, her voice tinged with emotion. “I almost started to cry. It was a promotion, yes, but it was far from convenient.”
As the reality of her situation sank in, Onwubiko felt a crushing sense of helplessness. Here she was, a professional woman trying to balance a demanding career with the duties of new motherhood. And yet, no matter how hard she tried, there seemed to be no workable solution in sight.
For Onwubiko and many other working mothers across Nigeria, the struggle to find reliable, affordable childcare is a daily battle.
The unregulated crèche system in urban centres often leaves parents with more questions than answers. How can they trust caregivers who seem more focused on profit than on the welfare of their children?
How do they navigate exorbitant fees, understaffed facilities, and, worst of all, the horror stories of abuse, neglect, or incompetence in the hands of these supposed caretakers?
Finding balance
Another chapter had begun for Onwubiko, a new mother with only two weeks to settle into her new role at work. The excitement she had felt was quickly dampened by her husband’s reaction when she shared the news. His words were not what she had hoped for.
“He’s never really been supportive of me working, especially now that we have a child,” Onwubiko admitted, her voice carrying a trace of frustration. “He told me to quit my job and focus on raising the baby.”
But Onwubiko had just completed her MBA and was determined to put her hard-earned degree to use. The idea of being a stay-at-home mom wasn’t an option she was willing to consider.
As she prepared to juggle the demands of motherhood with her new responsibilities at work, Onwubiko, like many Nigerian mothers, knew she would need to rely on her instincts, grit, and perseverance.
Her first task was to find a crèche for her baby, and in Eleme, the odds of finding a suitable one seemed slim. But, she was ‘lucky.’ A small church just a few streets away had a daycare run by the pastor’s wife.
When Felicia visited, she found the daycare unusually quiet. The children were all fast asleep, a sight that immediately calmed her nerves.
“It was so peaceful,” she recalled with a soft smile. “The woman who ran the daycare seemed kind. I asked all the questions I could think of—about how they operated, what their daily routine was like—and I left feeling reassured.”
The next morning, she returned, this time early enough to see other mothers dropping off their children. Everything seemed normal, nothing out of the ordinary. Onwubiko signed her daughter in, kissed her goodbye, and headed to work. Later that afternoon, she returned to check on her baby and found her sleeping.
“The caregiver mentioned that my baby had refused to eat, but I wasn’t too worried at first,” Onwubiko explained. “I tried to feed her myself, but she was so deeply asleep that she didn’t even stir. Then I noticed she was running temperature.”
A sense of unease crept in, but the caregiver brushed off her concerns, assuring Onwubiko that the baby was simply resting. Still uneasy, Onwubiko left, but couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that something wasn’t right.
By 4 pm, she rushed back to the daycare, having left the office earlier than usual. Her daughter was still sleeping. As she signed her out and took her home, Onwubiko noticed the temperature had come down, but her baby hadn’t woken up.
She slept for another three hours, only waking up around 9 pm, hungry and crying. Onwubiko checked the bottle of breast milk she had left with the caregivers earlier that day—it was untouched. Her heart sank.
Onwubiko’s heart raced as her baby girl stopped nursing and drifted off to sleep again; her tiny body nestled against her mother’s chest. There was a heaviness in the air, a subtle tension that Onwubiko couldn’t shake.
“I called my mother-in-law that night,” she recalled, her voice tinged with worry. “She said the baby was probably just tired. But when I woke up before her the next morning, I knew something wasn’t right.
“Normally, she’d be up before me, her soft cries growing louder with the morning. My husband used to joke that her voice was like an alarm clock. But that morning, at 5 am, she was still fast asleep.”
Onwubiko’s unease deepened. She called her mother, who suggested she wake the baby, feed her, and take her to the clinic if needed. But life got in the way. “I told myself I’d take her after work. She wasn’t running a fever, and by the time I was ready to leave, she was wide awake and even ate.”
The hours passed, but Onwubiko’s mind stayed with her baby. At 2 pm, she decided to check in unannounced. The sight that greeted her chilled her to the bone.
Her baby, once so vibrant, now lay in a corner, drenched in sweat. Her eyes were open, but she made no sound—no whimper, no cry. The daycare staff claimed they had called Onwubiko and her emergency contact, but neither had received any messages.
“I rushed her to the clinic,” Onwubiko said, her voice cracking. “After a few tests, the doctor looked at me with such anger. She asked me why I had drugged my child with sleeping pills. I was too stunned to respond. I ran out of her office and straight back to the daycare.”
There, chaos erupted. Onwubiko learnt that one of the caregivers had given her baby a sedative, something they casually deemed ‘normal’ because, according to them, children didn’t like to sleep.
“I almost lost my mind,” Onwubiko said, trembling as she spoke. “I called the police, informed my husband, and immediately took time off work. My job suffered. Everything suffered. The crèche was shut down by protesting mothers, but the pain never left. As I later learned, the owner quietly reopened.”
Her voice softened as she reflected on the ordeal. “Nothing could erase the trauma. The worst part was knowing this had happened to others, and yet, there was no justice,” she said.
Mauled at Lagos daycare
Mikel was just a few months old when his parents decided it was time for him to join a daycare. Like many young parents in Lagos, juggling work and parenthood, they had carefully chosen a school in Ago Palace, Okota, trusting that it would be a safe place for their precious child.
But what was supposed to be the beginning of a new chapter in Mikel’s life quickly turned into a nightmare that would leave his family shattered.
The day started like any other, with hopeful smiles and whispered reassurances. Mikel’s father, Malachy Ukwuegbu, and his wife had nervously dropped their baby off at the daycare for his very first day.
Little did they know, that the next time they would see their child, he would be unrecognisable.
A few hours after they left, the call came in. The words on the other end of the phone sent chills down Ukwuegbu’s spine. His baby had been attacked—grievously wounded.
By the time they rushed to the school, the sight that greeted them was horrific. Mikel’s face and body bore deep gashes and punctures. It was clear that whatever had caused these wounds was no ordinary scuffle between children.
“The school owner insisted that another child was responsible for what happened,” Ukwuegbu recalled, his voice breaking as he relived the painful memory. “But how could a fellow child have done this? The injuries were too severe.”
At the hospital, doctors confirmed what the devastated parents already feared—Mikel’s injuries were not caused by another child. The marks on his fragile body were consistent with an animal attack.
The revelation sent shockwaves through the family, turning their grief into anger and confusion. How could this have happened at a daycare that promised safety and care?
Desperate for answers, Ukwuegbu and his wife confronted the school’s owner but were met with evasiveness.
The story didn’t add up, and it became clear that the truth was being concealed. When the family took their case to the police, hoping for justice, they encountered yet another hurdle.
The wealthy owner of the daycare was allegedly using her influence and resources to cover up the incident, making it difficult for the investigation to move forward.
“We were helpless,” Ukwuegbu said, his voice trembling with frustration. “We went to the police, but every time we thought we were making progress, it felt like something was holding us back. We were told not to worry, and that it would be handled. But what about my son? What about Mikel? Who will answer for what happened to him?”
It was at this point that Ukwuegbu and his wife reached out to human rights activist, Harrison Gwamnishu, hoping for some intervention.
Gwamnishu, known for his tireless advocacy, immediately took up their case, sharing the heart-wrenching details on social media and calling for justice.
For Ukwuegbu, this fight is not just about justice for his son—it’s about ensuring that no other parent has to experience the horror he now lives with. “We trusted them,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “We trusted them with our child, and they failed us.”
Mystery death in Abuja daycare
It was supposed to be a typical day for Mrs Onoja as she dropped her six-month-old daughter, Michelle, off at an international school in Abuja that runs a daycare.
Like any mother, she trusted that the daycare staff would care for her baby, ensuring she was safe and loved in her absence. But by the end of the day, her world would be shattered in ways she could never have imagined.
Michelle, a bubbly, healthy six-month-old, was gone. The school claimed she had suffocated. Yet, to Mrs Onoja, the story did not add up. Her instincts told her there was more to what had happened.
What began as a heartbreaking loss quickly spiralled into a mystery marked by suspicion, missing evidence, and unanswered questions.
In the days following Michelle’s death, Mrs Onoja’s grief was compounded by the troubling circumstances surrounding the school’s response. From the beginning, she had demanded to see the school’s CCTV footage—footage she believed would hold critical answers.
But instead of cooperation, she faced silence. Her calls to the school went unanswered, and it wasn’t until she sent a message directly to the school’s proprietress that she even received a response.
“I asked them not to delete the CCTV footage,” Mrs Onoja explained. “I was calling the proprietress, the secretary, the staff—nobody was picking up my calls. I was desperate. I sent the message so that there would be evidence that I asked for it.”
But by the time an engineer was sent to retrieve the footage, she said it was too late, noting that the files from the day of Michelle’s death had been wiped clean.
On March 27, 2019, she learnt the devastating news; the CCTV footage on January 12, the day her daughter died, had been deleted. The engineer who installed the system confirmed the shocking discovery to the bereaved mother.
Onoja said the engineer explained that the hard drive should have held at least three months of footage. Even if the drive had been full, it would have started deleting older files from as far back as October or November—not the footage from January. His findings raised an alarming question: who had deleted the footage, and why?
“I don’t know who erased the footage,” the distraught mother said. “But it’s clear someone is hiding something. They need to produce the CCTV footage. This is how the school has been indicted in all of this.”
Her suspicions grew as she recounted the events leading up to her daughter’s death. “The autopsy showed suffocation, but suffocation can happen in different ways,” she explained. “It could be from blocking someone’s nose. The tip of Michelle’s nose was red like there was pressure on it. Was my daughter murdered on purpose? I have no idea. I wasn’t there, so I don’t know what happened to my daughter.”
The mother’s disbelief grew when she heard the school had suggested that Michelle was sick. “They tried to claim she had sickle cell,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “I am AA, and so is my husband. There’s no way Michelle could have been a sickle cell child. She was perfectly healthy.”
The situation took another dark turn when the police became involved. She had hoped that reporting the incident would bring some semblance of justice. At first, it seemed like progress was being made.
The officer in charge of the case ordered the detention of the school proprietress. For a brief moment, it appeared that someone would be held accountable. But before the detention could be carried out, a phone call changed everything.
“I thought she had been detained,” she recalled. “But then I found out she had made a call to a big man, and he came down to the station. He questioned the Officer in Charge of Homicide and told him not to detain her.”
In that moment, her hopes for justice seemed to vanish. The weight of her daughter’s loss, coupled with the glaring lack of accountability, became almost too much to bear.
As the case was transferred to the Criminal Investigation Department, she waited, praying for the answers she so desperately needed. But the longer she waited, the more the truth felt out of reach, buried beneath layers of silence, privilege, and unanswered questions.
“All I want is the truth. I deserve to know what happened to my daughter,” she muttered.
Choked on pap?
In the heart of Ajao Estate, Lagos, a mother’s world crumbled when a simple morning drop-off at a crèche turned into a nightmare. Her seven-month-old baby, just registered at a crèche in the area, had only been in the care of Miss Chinemerem, the teacher, for 30 minutes before disaster struck.
It was October 26, 2017—just like any other day. The young mother, juggling work and her National Youth Service duties, left her baby in the hands of the crèche staff, unaware of the tragedy that would follow.
Barely settled in at her office, she received a frantic call from Chinemerem, saying the baby was shivering and struggling to breathe.
Pap, the food meant to nourish, had turned lethal, blocking the child’s airways and spilling from her tiny nose and mouth. The mother rushed to the nearby hospital, Faith City, only to be met with the crushing news: her baby was already gone.
Days before the incident, the mother had noticed her cold demeanour, brushing off her greetings. Little did she know that a storm was brewing.
Adding insult to injury, neither the crèche’s owner nor its staff came to offer condolences. The baby’s belongings still sit untouched, waiting for parents too broken to return.
This is the tragic reality many Nigerian parents face, entrusting their precious children to an unregulated daycare system.
Multiple cases of starvation
Some of the mothers at the crèche in Eleme, as reported by Felicia, claimed that their babies appeared pale and hungry upon pickup, raising suspicions of starvation. This isn’t an isolated case.
In Ogun State, several caregivers have also been accused of neglect and starvation.
In one prominent 2021 case, a well-known crèche faced allegations after mothers observed changes in their children’s health and behaviour.
Mrs Sola Ogubiyi, a parent, shared that the crèche owner was confronted after CCTV footage revealed staff chatting during lunch instead of feeding the children.
“In the videos, they would toss aside children who refused food and pretend later that they’d been fed by emptying their flasks. It was despicable,” she said.
Daycare, an essential part of modern-day motherhood
Daycares or crèches are vital to the lives of many Nigerian mothers, especially in urban centres where the demands of modern life and work schedules often leave parents with limited childcare options.
According to recent studies by the International Finance Corporation, 45 per cent of Nigerian families spend up to 20% of their income on childcare services, a significant financial burden given the country’s economic challenges. The average cost of childcare per child is about N228,000 annually, which is over half of the national minimum wage.
For working mothers, daycares are essential because many Nigerian labour laws only offer 12 weeks of maternity leave, forcing mothers to return to work when their children are just three months old.
Unlike countries like the UK and Bulgaria, which offer longer maternity leaves, Nigerian women often have no choice but to seek external care for their children. This situation is exacerbated for single parents and breadwinners who need to maintain employment to support their families.
However, the daycare sector in Nigeria is fraught with challenges. IFC says only 48 per cent of daycare providers can show a valid license, raising concerns about the quality of care.
Most daycare services are privately owned and often struggle with poor regulations and inadequate staffing. The fragmented market, with 74 per cent of providers operating in just one location, highlights the need for more structured and scalable solutions.
As demand for childcare services is expected to grow by 10 per cent by 2025, there is a clear opportunity to improve and expand access to affordable, quality childcare across Nigeria.
This would not only help mothers but also strengthen the economy by allowing more women to participate in the workforce without sacrificing their children’s welfare.
A child safety expert, Rukayat Alli-Oluwafuyi, in an expository article on November 3, 2017, stated that more and more women were joining the workforce and there was an inevitable need to provide care for children especially those within the age bracket 0-3 years.
A lot of schools, in addition to normal services, have included early childhood care in the list of services rendered.
“There is the daycare (mostly for children between ages zero and three) and the after-school for ages 0 to nine years old. Child care services are welcome developments and it is a very lucrative area if things are done correctly. The big question is ‘How many child care centres do things correctly?’,” she queried.
According to NERDC, in their National Minimum Standards for Early Child Care Centres in Nigeria document, the care and support received by a child in terms of good health, nutrition, psycho-social care and protection are crucial in the formation and development of intelligence, personality and social behaviour.
In addition to these, safety and security have become pressing issues as a result of the security lapse in the country.
Speaking further, the expert said, “Some creches in the highbrow areas of Lagos have security cameras, doors and all sorts of sophisticated facilities to ensure safety and security.
“This is not far-fetched and can be replicated with minimal costs even in the middle and lower-class areas. For any facility that renders services to humans especially children, environmental health and safety should be at the core of their business. Caregivers should be well-trained in basic first aid, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and emergency response.
“Child care is beyond changing diapers, rocking to sleep, and feeding. The first three years are the most important in a child’s life and should be treated with utmost importance,” she added.
Who regulates crèches in Nigeria?
The Ministry of Women Affairs is saddled with the responsibility of certifying a crèche, our correspondent learnt.
An aide to the Minister of Women Affairs who refused to speak on record because she was not permitted to speak to the press, told our correspondent that the minister, Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, was looking into the sector.
“The minister is very proactive. She is looking into the daycare sector which is a critical sector for working-class women. A policy document would soon be formulated on the minimum requirements to open a crèche in any part of the country and the approvals one must get and how they can be renewed, how inspections can be done and how the child can be protected from abuse, neglect or harm,” the aide added.
Our correspondent learnt that the requirement for setting up a crèche differs from state to state, but cannot authoritatively confirm whether this is what should be obtained, as calls put through to the spokesperson of the Ministry of Women Affairs were not responded to as of press time.
A source in the ministry, however, told our correspondent that for one to start a daycare or crèche in Nigeria, one would need a business permit from the local government and a trade license from the Local Government Education Authority.
“There are several regulations, but just like orphanages, people don’t comply with them, putting the life of the child at risk,” the source, a senior civil servant, lamented.
Despite the many rots in the system, several mothers who spoke to our correspondent that the daycare option was the most viable for working-class mums.
“It is hard to trust another person to take care of your child, but all my three kids have been partially raised by caregivers in my church’s daycare,” a mother, Mrs Blessing Onakoya, told our correspondent.
Another mother, who also now runs a crèche, in Rivers State, Mrs Hosannah Bristol, said she started the business because she saw how well the daycares she put her kids in took care of them.
“Don’t patronise quacks. Look for credible daycares. Run all the checks. Ask for licenses. Make sure you know who you are dropping your child with because the government cannot do everything,” she added.
An educationist and head of international marketing at the 16 Plus Schools, Lagos, Mr Aniedi Akpan, said the daycare system may have lots of quacks but would be a haven for working-class mothers if they do all the background checks before leaving their children there.
Another expert, a developmental psychologist, Dr Usen Essien, advised mothers to not look at the price list of some daycares and run away, stressing that quality services are, most times, expensive.
“No money is too much for a child’s safety,” he stressed.
