Preventing Our Children From A Perilous Future

 By Ayo Baje

“Let us work together to create a future where every child can learn, grow and thrive. Education is a right not a privilege. Let us make it a reality for all”

– Hon. Obidike Chukwuebuka (APC Chieftain). 

The celebration of the 2024 World Children’s Day has come and gone but the scandalous statistics of the abysmal quality of the life of the average Nigerian youth stare us all in the face. Lest we deceive ourselves, there is cause for serious concern, with regards to the educational, healthcare and socio-economic status of our children, that we, as adults would be leaving for them. 

New Private Universities: No Shortcut To Quality Education

 By Levi Obijiofor

Anyone who is not baffled by the blunders committed by clueless political leaders who governed Nigeria since independence in October 1960 must be in deep slumber. Two weeks before the inauguration of a new government on May 29, 2023, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved the establishment of 37 new private universities. That decision by the Muhammadu Buhari government flew in the face of reality.

You have to wonder the kind of reasons that convinced the FEC to endorse the new universities in a country in which existing universities are struggling to find and hire qualified teaching staff, to provide quality teaching and research, to establish good libraries, and to provide high-speed Internet and other resources that would enable academic staff and students to achieve their teaching and learning objectives.

Is Sex Education Not Child Abuse?

 By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

It is not surprising that the recent directive by the Minister of Education, Mr. Adamu Adamu, to the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) to expunge Sex Education from the basic education curriculum in Nigeria has been greeted with serious opposition from groups and persons who 0bviously derive some of benefits from the callous sexualisation of the tender minds of Nigerian pupils.

I am sure that many parents and concerned persons who have heard about the minister’s directive are highly relieved and happy and hoping that no amount of pressure from these misguided interest groups will compel the government to have a change of mind. Indeed, this is a major move towards sanitizing our primary and secondary education curriculum and salvaging the moral health of the younger generation which has been badly corrupted and diseased by very pernicious teachings that can only mould them into badly flawed characters.  

When some years ago I was shown the topics covered in “Sexuality Education” or “Sex Education” which was being taught as a compulsory subject in both junior and secondary schools in Nigeria, it was shocking to see that mere kids, some as young as ten or even nine, were put in the hands of teachers, who deploy every energy, talent and creativity to saturate their tender minds with every detail about sexual immorality and the use of contraceptives.  

When I first raised alarm on this issue in my now rested newspaper column, a concerned parent wrote me to say that the ‘Teacher’s Guide’ given to the Integrated Science teachers (who handled this subject) mandated them “to teach the children that religious teachings on issues like pre-marital sex, contraception, homosexuality, abortion and gender relations are mere opinions and myths! They are also to teach the students how to masturbate and use chemical contraceptives (designed for women in their 30s). The ‘Teachers Guide’ equally lays a big emphasis on values clarification; this empowers teenage children to decide which moral values to choose since the ones parents teach them at home are mere options.” 

It was difficult to imagine that any normal person could have the mind to design such a subject even for the children of his worst enemy! In my view, this clearly qualifies as child abuse, which, sadly, was unabashedly   endorsed by the authorities. But many Nigerian parents are highly elated today at the intervention of the Education Minister which has put an abrupt end to the whole sickening madness!   

How can parents and concerned citizens smother the tormenting fears that some of the Sex Education teachers might aim to deftly deploy this subject to titillate their tender victims instead of giving them healthy education?  One can imagine how easy it would be for a teacher who has been targeting a female student to use his creative elaboration of this subject, to get the girl so overwhelmed she would become easy meat.  

I am told that there are two main reasons for the introduction of this subject in our schools. One is to empower school children with adequate knowledge about their bodies and how to “safely” indulge in pre-marital sex without falling victims to teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, especially HIV/AIDS.  

The second reason is to demystify sexual immorality, give it a positive image as something to be cherished and enjoyed without any fear, as long as it is done “safely” and consensually. The belief is that with the age-long “superstition” built around sexual immorality which ‘stigmatizes’ it as an evil and sinful activity, some kids tend to go into it with fear and dread, and so develop psychological problems arising from the guilt they feel afterwards.  

But these reasons are simply hollow and unconvincing. They are built on the assumption that in the present age, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for unmarried people to abstain from sex.  And so, instead of teaching the kids to place appropriate value to their bodies and maintain their self-esteem by abstaining from sexual immorality as our own parents had taught us, they are emboldened to behave like dogs. But the difference between human beings and animals ought to be the ability to reason and determine the consequences of actions, and then exercise discretion and self-control. Why not tell a kid the consequences of an action and use that to dissuade him from indulging in it? Has that not worked for ages? 

Looking at the earnestness with which this policy is being pursued despite oppositions from informed parents and other concerned parties, one is forced to suspect that there may also be some commercial angle to it. Are we sure that substantial profit is not   accruing to the initiators of this programme and their collaborators in government from the sales of the several books being written and printed on the vile subject? Support may equally be coming from manufacturers of contraceptives and the well-oiled NGOs they are promoting who certainly see in Sex Education a lucrative venture to promote and sustain. 

Now, how far has this subject helped in reducing teenage pregnancies and STDs in the Western nations where it has been taught, assimilated and practiced for many years now? It is a fact that these teachings have, for instance, been introduced in both the United States and Britain for many years now, but as I write now, I have before me, a BBC report saying that Britain has the highest record of teenage pregnancy in the whole of Western Europe. Also, another report has it that the United States has the highest number of teenage pregnancies in the entire Western world. Again, in the United States, it is reported that new infections of HIV are still on the increase. 

That naturally leads us to the contentious issue of “safe sex.”  So, what is all this fetish about “safe sex” and how “safe” can sex actually be?  The truth is that a lot of studies and findings have effectively punctured the dubious confidence built over the years on condom-use.  We know that with an effective magnifying lens, it is easy to see that several objects, especially rubber and plastics, have tiny holes through which very minute micro organisms could pass.  

I read somewhere recently that the “HIV virus is only 0.1 micron in size while the naturally occurring holes in a latex condom is of the order 5 to 50 microns in diameter.”  So where then is the “protection” we have heard so much about if the deadly virus can indeed pass through the wall of  a condom? Is this not why we have often heard reports of people contracting HIV even though they had practiced the so-called “protected sex”? This is the time to rethink all this stuff behind which some fellows have hidden to pollute the minds of kids with ruinous teachings.

Fortunately, we have one precaution that does not fail. And that is the good old abstinence, which has been proven and tested to be the only reliable protection against deadly STDs and teenage pregnancies? We must hasten to realize that what is at stake here is human life, and should not be toyed with, for whatever reasons. It is becoming increasingly difficult to understand this desperation to create an immoral and ungodly society by misleading the youths?  Now, if not for reasons that are less than noble and wholesome, why would Nigeria be eager to import a policy that is failing even in more advanced nations?   

Okay, here is another point to ponder: HIV is 500 times smaller than spermatozoa, yet research has established that spermatozoa are able to sometimes pass through the wall of a latex condom to cause conception. Now, if this is the case, are we not by this subject leading our youths through the minefield? The example cited earlier of the worrisome rise in fresh infections of HIV in a place like the US  where years of successful Sex Education has achieved overwhelming attitudinal change in favour of condom-use should serve to buttress this point. 

Now, with this policy in place and flourishing, where is this nation really heading to? What is the use living, if one must live like a dog? 

I would, therefore, want to advise the school boy or girl reading this piece to please pause awhile and ask himself or herself what the initiators of this policy hope to achieve in his of her life by giving him or her these teachings? Such a youth should wonder how they still expect him to concentrate on his studies after they have saturated his mind with filthy teachings that only fill his mind with distractive lusts.  

Now, if his instructors (who are mostly parents) are encouraging him to freely indulge in sexual immorality at this early stage of his life, what type of future leader do they expect him to become? After “empowering” him to go on the rampage, wouldn’t they have succeeded in giving him a disease deadlier than even the AIDS they are presuming to save him from – which is the destruction of his moral fibre?   

What is the guarantee that he would be able to build a healthy family afterwards by shunning the promiscuity that this subject is surely preparing him for, and which, as we all know, results in the proliferation of broken homes which has become the nightmare of today’s world?    

It is instructive that The Guardian on Sunday, July 18, 1999, carried a report that a cross section of American college (mostly female) students were regretting the limitless freedom their parents had allowed them and had resolved to devote themselves to pursue a “no-sex” campaign. But in Nigeria of today, sexual immorality has been deregulated and democratized. 

But concerned Nigerian parents cannot afford to be intimidated and just watch helplessly as some fellows whose intentions are less than noble go all out to ruin their kids for them. And so, they should be able to ask: To what extent should the government interfere in people’s lives and families?  

Where does the government derive the authority to invade somebody’s home with ungodly teachings and inflict them on the person’s kids, just because he gave his kid to the government to educate in its schools? Shouldn’t an open and clear expression of disaffection towards this gross violation by stakeholders have since led to its reappraisal and possible removal from the school curriculum?  

Again, and very importantly too; most people have strongly accepted and hold very dear to their hearts the teachings they have received from the religious faith of their choice (which we as civilized people must respect) that sexual immorality which is a grievous sin against God attracts eternal damnation; and they are eager to ensure that both themselves and their kids escape this terrible doom; how then can we accommodate and respect this their belief (which is sacred to them) in this unwholesome insistence on teaching and encouraging their children to freely indulge in fornication?  Should we just dismiss and callously tear down a belief they hold so sacred and dear, and with which they have determined to successfully raise their children to become morally healthy kids? As if it does not matter?   

It is heartwarming that, at last, the Minister of Education has agreed with those of us who have continued to insist that this policy is ruinous and has ordered its removal from the school curriculum since it denies a large a number of people the option of choice. Many parents are not even aware that such a teaching is being generously forced down the throats of their precious children, thereby destroying all they have taught them at home. 

Certainly, there are centres where some NGOs have established to propagate these pro-pre-marital sex teachings. Interested parents can take their children to those centres, while the objecting parents are spared the trauma of watching their kids being subjected to a menu they firmly believe is terribly unhealthy and ruinous. Their right to dissent must be respected.   

*Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye is a Nigerian journalist and writer. His book, Nigeria: Why Looting May Not Stop, is available on Amazon.com (scruples2006@yahoo.com)

*First published in The NATION (of Nov 30, 2022); VANGUARD and SUN (of Dec. 1, 2022)

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Towards The Federal Republic Of Illiteracy

 By Owei Lakemfa

Education Minister, Adamu Adamu, after presiding over the N5.6 trillion Education Budget in the last seven years and the N1.3 trillion intervention fund in four years, announced he has failed. It is not that as Education Minister, he has failed to preside over spending about N7 trillion in seven years, but, has failed to deliver on basic programmes and promises.

However, like other smart alecs, he exonerates himself. He, rather, blames the state governors for his manifest failure. Adamu said the main policy of the Buhari education programme was to pull: “children out of the street back to the school, but evidently, the actions of the state governments are pushing the children back to the streets.”

The Politics Of Naira Redesign

 By Robert Obioha

The plan to redesign the naira by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has, like any other issue in Nigeria, been riddled with controversy and even politics. Ordinarily, the redesign of the naira for the envisaged benefits, which many Nigerians are interrogating, would not have generated the needless acrimony if adequate consultations were made and major stakeholders carried along. 

The differing opinions on the issue from those serving in this government is unnecessary. It is an avoidable distraction. It also shows the level of incoherence among ministers and officials of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration. It is unthinkable that such a change in redesign of the naira is being contemplated without the knowledge of the minister of finance even if the law establishing the CBN did not expressly stipulate so.

Why ASUU Showdown With Government Is Justified

 By Bisi Olawunmi

Academic Staff Union of Universities has gone for broke with its declaration of indefinite strike, ending its roll-over strategy since its February 14, 2022 call out of lecturers in public universities.  The union must have decided to force issues, considering that in recent times, momentum has been building up against the six-month-old strike by  ASUU  that has grounded academic activities in publicly owned universities across the nation.

The lecturers are being backed to the wall as Federal Government negotiators, its spokespersons and critics, mainly on social and print media,  project  ASUU members as self-serving, overindulged and lacking empathy for their students. The broadcast media are not left out as the ASUU strike has been the subject of discussion and phone-in programmes on radio and television stations.

Editorial writers and columnists are having a field day, pontificating on the face-off. The initial groundswell of support for ASUU is gradually giving way to a weariness-induced attitude of e don do (enough is enough) by a growing segment of the public. It is understandable. Those who have been largely parents, in absentia, are being compelled to be parents, in situ, for six continuous months and many are not finding it easy. It has occasioned frayed nerves at the family level. 

Why ASUU Strike Is For Benefit Of The Poor, Needy

 By Jeff Doki

For many years, the ideological nature of political struggle in Nigeria has been systematically suppressed by the press. When Nigeria politics is written about, it is in misleadingly crude terms of power struggles between political parties—usually the All Progressives Congress, Peoples Democratic Party and (very recently) the Labour Party. Or sometimes, the reportage is about individual personalities—Bola Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi—or the economic problems (hunger, poverty, disease, joblessness, soaring energy prices and lack of access to quality education, among others) supposedly caused by poor leadership.

As a matter of fact, such strands of politics, reported by the Nigerian media, are mere subplots in the battle between a backwards-looking regime, erected on the structures of shameful revisionism,  corruption, denial of truth and unpatriotic divisiveness on the one hand, and the nationalists and intellectual workers headed by Academic Staff Union of Universities on the other. It is important to state from the outset that this latter group (led by ASUU) is acting as a check on the increasing gross inequality between the bourgeoisie and the 90% of the Nigerian population who are peasants and urban workers.

Kachikwu As Scapegoat Of Tinubu's Frustration

By Uche Ezechukwu

The mantra of ‘change’, mouthed by the All Progressive Congress (APC) during the electoral campaigns was so appealing at the time to Nigerians, such that when they ushered Muhammadu Buhari into office by voting out Goodluck Jonathan, hope became the most abundant commodity in Nigeria. When APC promised that they were going to recreate for Nigerians a heaven on earth, they were believed and trusted, especially as that ‘change promise’ was being steered by a man that was reputed to be a man of truth. 

*Bola Tinubu and President Buhari 

For a country that places little premium on competence and proven track record, not much thought was extended on Buhari’s ability to understand, not to talk of being able to confront the complex demands of modern-day issues. Even those who had queried his intellectual capacity to face up to those modern-day challenges were shouted down. Nigerians wanted their man; they got him. Ten months into President Muhammadu Buhari’s APC administration, it has become obvious, even to the APC bosses themselves, that talk is cheap, and that as the saying goes here in Nigeria, ‘khaki no be leather’. 

One does not have to be ‘a wailer’ to see and accept that nothing is working in today’s Nigeria or that the government is at sea over where next to turn. In the beginning, every bend on the road was blamed on the outgone administration of President Jonathan as well as on the 16-year reign of the PDP, which in any case, was made up of most of today’s top-hats in the APC. The over-lapping messages of the campaign period had continued to work for the APC during the early months of the administration, but it could definitely not last forever. Propaganda, though effective on the short run, has a very quick expiry date. The APC’s campaign excuses and the blaming game days have also elapsed…perhaps permanently.

For instance, there was no way the Buhari administration could continue to blame Goodluck Jonathan for the president’s inability to pick ministers for six whole months; nor could the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) be blamed for having anything to do with the fact that when PMB eventually did pick his ministers, they were mostly lack-lustre and lacking in pedigree, accounting for the fact that the cabinet does not have one single person whose voice commands authority in the field of economic management. Many have wondered if the problem with the embarrassingly low quality of Buhari’s team is the lack of the ability, ab initio, of the president to distinguish copper from gold.

Yet, there are many other informed observers who believe, like an article of faith, that the problem with the inertia of the current cabinet members who have definitely not performed, might not be in their personal lack of capacity, but rather, in the absence of a definite roadmap, as it is widely alleged that no minister can as much as sharpen a pencil without the president’s say-so. Which should not be a surprise, as, after all, over 90 per cent of them were picked not on their individual merit as proven performers, but rather because they were cronies of either Buhari or Ahmed Tinubu, the ‘owner’ of the other half of the party that brought the votes and the cash.