No less than 45 children of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) currently undergoing free education under the Under the Bridge Initiative, Arepo, Ogun State, may lose the opportunity as the church space which they use as classrooms has been slated for demolition.
Reason is that the classroom space, a rented building by a parish of the Lagos Province 77, Redeemed Christian Church of God, being used by the Initiative for the exercise, has been bought and the new owners wish to put the place into another use.
The Under the Bridge Initiative, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) founded by Mrs. Ibukun Adeoye in 2021, is focused on providing education for street children like the Almajiris and Internally Displaced Persons’ children.
Aside formal education, the NGO also engages them in informal education like chess, aerobics and other indoor games. It was out of concern to remove them from the streets that Mrs. Adeoye, start the Under the Bridge Initiative.
Co-Founder of the Initiative, Ms. Ndidiamaka Durugbo, lamented that the children, who have been undergoing free education since 2021, risk returning to the streets unless a new classroom accommodation is secured for them as soon as possible.
According to the Volunteer, the Centre of Mercy Parish, which rented the building for its weekly services, had to move when the landlord sold it and the new owners expressed the intention to demolish and rebuild the space for another use.
She added, “The Parish which gave us their space to use as Classrooms, has now moved to a hotel where they hold their Sunday services only; so it will not be available for our use during the week. Now, the new owners have served us notice to quit and the notice expired Tuesday, December 31”.
The current pupils’ population comprises mostly of IDP children from different parts of the North East, who were picked from under the bridges across communities in Obafemi Owode Local Government Area where they, along with their parents, begged from motorists.
The Volunteer, however, added that more children of other beggars in the community joined the school on seeing the likely benefits of the Initiative, adding that the population now comprises a kindergarten class, and primary one to four classes, while the Initiative has started preparing the senior pupils for Common Entrance Examination as they proceed to Primary Six.
“We thought of moving to another place, but we cannot afford the rent in Arepo which goes for over N2 million Naira per year. What this means is that the pupils, mainly children of victims of the Boko Haram insurgency, and other children of street beggars, who later joined us, would have to return to the streets and destitution.
Speaking on the impact and likely effect of stopping the programme, Ms. Durugbo, lamented, “Right now, we may have to stop the programme as we do not have a place to move to. We do not have any place to move into as the cost of rent is too high in Arepo. Since August when we were served the Quit Notice, we have deployed different methods of raising funds, but unfortunately, we have not been able to garner the support needed”.
“The likely consequence is that the children may be forced to return to their destitution and lose the opportunity of ever getting education. The parents are devastated. We were supposed to reopen on Monday, January 6, 2026, but we are forced to move the date forward in anticipation of any assistance to secure a new accommodation”, she said.
It would be recalled that Under the Bridge Initiative, a Non – Governmental Organization (NGO) founded by Mrs. Ibukun Adeoye, came into the consciousness of Sunday Telegraph readers in June last year, when the efforts of Adeoye and her Volunteers was first reported.
Then, the immediate past Pastor in Charge of Lagos Province 77, Pastor Noruwa Adokpolor had led a team comprising the Assistant Pastor-in-Charge of the Province (Administration Pastor (Mrs.) Constance Iweanya and Assistant Pastor-in-Charge (CSR), Pastor Olushola Sanni, to identify with the NGO and to look for possible way to ease their burden, hence, the space which he gave them to use for free.
In a previous interview, Adeoye had told the Sunday Telegraph, “We had to go to their parents and appeal to them to release the children for us to teach them formal education. It would interest you to know that some of these children have great ambition as we have those of them who want to become pilots and medical doctors. They have shown traces of these.
