Ademola, it is my belief that if a crusader is deficient in integrity, no normal person will believe his gospel. Traditional, religious and political leaders in Nigeria are not the conscience of the nation but the main cause of our people's problems. The capitalist economic politics (the type that operates in Nigeria) and the political culture that goes with it have as lubricants, several maladies such as extreme exploitation, corruption, nepotism, selfishness, state robbery, greediness, primitive accumulation of wealth, religious and ethnic bigotry. Those maladies caused by the traditional, religious and political leaders in Nigeria, give births to mass illiteracy, mass unemployment, mass poverty, armed robberies, kidnappings and assassinations. From the aforesaid, it is very clear that the economic problems of Nigeria today are not caused by overpopulation but embezzlement of developmental funds by the gangs of traditional, religious and political leaders. Let me clarify myself with example.
Official documents from the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) show that 19 states and 413 local governments in Northern Nigeria received together a total sum of N 8.3 trillion from the Federal government as allocation between 1999 and 2010. According to the 2006 census figures, Kano state with a population of 9.4 million received Revenue Allocations of N761.7 billion from the FG for the period of 11 years, which was N333.1 billion for Kano's 44 Local Governments and N 428.6 billion for Kano State government. What happened to those allocations and subsequent ones? Just like other states in Nigeria, Kano inhabitants have been robbed of their individual shares of Kano State's Gross Domestic Product by the ruling class that transformed their GDP share to Gross Domestic Poverty. That children in Kano State end up as street urchins, Alimajiris and easy recruits for terrorism are not as a result of being born to this world but as a result of heartless and wicked religious cum traditional and political leaders who had stolen funds allocated for their welfare developments.
In year 2000, Nigeria was a signatory to the UN sponsored Millenium Development Goal (MDG), supported by IMF and World Bank, and in which Nigeria committed herself to establish free primary education for every child of school age in the country by the end of year 2015. Despite appropriated funds, nationally and internationally, ghost schools were built, ghost teachers were employed and ghost children were recruited while money disappeared into the personal bank accounts of traditional cum religious and political leaders. Those who steal money meant for education and welfare of Nigerian children now turn around to say that the children should not have been born to this world. Already, on 26 June 2012, President Goodluck Ebelechukwu Jonathan spoke at the inauguration of the Chairman and Commissioners of the National Population Commission, in Presidential Villa, Abuja. He said, "For us to plan properly, we must manage our population, but it is extremely sensitive, we are extremely religious people, either you are a Christian or a Moslem. Both Christans and Moslems and even traditionalists believe that children are God's gifts to man, so it is difficult for you to tell any Nigerian to limit the number of their children." He urged the NPC to come up with plans and programmes that will encourage Nigerians to have the number of children they can manage. He explained further, "Sometimes you get to somebody's house living in a well furnished duplex. The husband and wife there may have two, three or four children. The maiguard guiding them have nine children. That is the scenario you have. That means that there is a segment of the population that knows that you must get a number of children that you can manage but the other segment of the population don't. If you are used to military barracks you will see that the officers, General this, Major General this, Brigadier this, Colonel this have three, five children but those that have no rank have eight, twelve. This is the scenario. The people up, probably because of their level of education, know that they must control their population, but the people down, because of the level of exposure and education are still not aware that you must control your population. So first and foremost, before government comes up with regulations, guidelines or laws, Nigerians must be made to know that we cannot continue to procreate and procreate even though we know children are God's gifts." The President set a deadline of 2015 for the 23 man National Population Commission to complete the issuance of national Identity Cards to all eligible Nigerians. Although Jonathan observed the difference in rearing children between a duplex owner and his gate-keeper (MAIGUARD) as well as the difference at the rate of procreation between Commissioned Officers in the Army and other ranks, he failed to observe the economic apartheid that is responsible for the behaviour of the elements in his scenario. Education and just distribution of incomes are panaceas to birth control. The military officers and the duplex owner are either Christians, Muslims or traditionalists Nigerians, yet they did not regard numerous children as God's gifts that they are bound to procure. Thus, the desire for limitless procreation by individual has to do with lack of education and the economic apartheid under which an individual is forced to live. In a country where absolute majority of citizens do not speak or understand the imposed official language, English, any birth control law will not be implementable. Even when the monarch talked about Islamic law, majority people of his Kano Emirate do not speak, write or understand Arabic. With that said, your idea of chloroquine treatment and the assumption that I abused or insulted the Emir stemmed from irrational analysis and illogical deductions.
S. Kadiri
Skickat: den 26 februari 2017 04:13
Till: Cornelius Hamelberg; USA Africa Dialogue Series
Kopia: Toyin Falola; Adeshina Afolayan
Ämne: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Emir Sanusi on Polygamy, Procreation, and Poverty
Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.
| From: Cornelius Hamelberg Sent: Sunday, 26 February 2017 00:43 To: USA Africa Dialogue Series Reply To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Emir Sanusi on Polygamy, Procreation, and Poverty |
All he did was to make some serious suggestions as to how to help solve a problem that's surely looming over his country. You could disagree with him, but politely...
On Sunday, 26 February 2017 00:23:22 UTC+1, ogunlakaiye wrote:
Bubonic plague wiped out 33 per cent of European population in the 14th century and a century later Europe was overpopulated to the extent of exterminating the American, Australian and New Zealand aborigins and planting Europeans in those non-European territories. Yet, overpopulated Europe never practised polygamy. Thus polygamy has nothing to do with overpopulation. Family pattern in Europe of that time was not firmly established on a wife and a husband co-habiting as men challenged fellow men to duel on the right to copulate with available woman. The survivor of such duel was automatically embraced by the woman on whose duel was fought and after copulation and pregnancy, she was abandoned by the man who was out to look for another prey to copulate with.
In Africa, marriage between a man and woman was systematic and the practice of polygamy preceded the incursion of Islam in Africa. Marriage to more than one wife was not caused by a male's desire just to satisfy his sexual appetite but to procreate. In his racist tuned book titled : The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa, Lord Lugard could not help observing the following, "The custom, which seems fairly general among the negro tribes, of suckling a child for two or three years, during which a woman lives apart from her husband, tends to decrease population." The implication of what Lugard meant with 'during which a woman lives apart from her husband,' is that the man never had sexual intercourse for two or three years with the suckling mother. Polygamy, in reality, ensured that every female was mated. Even where a man was monogamous and the wife attained menopause, the wife would take initiative to get a wife that was still productive for the husband since she considered that continuous copulation of the husband with her at a menopause age constituted wasting of his sperm. In the culturally unpolluted Africa, sex was never considered a leisure time engagements but solely to procreate. There were no prostitutes in pre-colonial Africa. Sanusi probably fills his harem with 30 wives while advocating that other men should limit the number of their wives to one or two. What did he produce and sell in Nigeria to get the financial and economic power to marry more than a wife? He should love his neighbour as himself and in the absence of that, he should shut his mouth and keep a low profile.
S.Kadiri
Från: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com > för Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>
Skickat: den 25 februari 2017 16:28
Till: USA Africa Dialogue Series
Ämne: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Emir Sanusi on Polygamy, Procreation, and Poverty--As the late great Cardinal Rex Lawson put it : Nah so a see am o!
Some obvious problems in the way
Re- Population control by not having so many wives and siring so many children - China is a practical example of population control by state legislation.
Should it be only the rich who should be permitted to have many children?
From the point of view of the Divine injunction to fill the earth, we are to suppose that on that score, the Almighty is happy with the sleeping giant, Nigeria and Nigerians. Despite decimation by the slave trade, war, famine, poverty and disease,Wallaahu rau'oofun bil ibaad - by the grace of our merciful God, the human race will not be extinguished in Nigeria. On the whole the statistics for population increase in Nigeria is encouraging: In 1960 Nigeria's population was about 33 million souls and in 2017 the challenge will be exceeding 185 million mouths to feed, clothe, provide potable water and electricity, shelter, educate , employ, as useful citizens etc.
In this forum there's often the good wishes extended from one person to another with these words :
Since Nigeria practices some form of representative democracy and governments are elected through the ballot box, one man one vote, every citizen over the age of eighteen eligible to cast their ballot - this means that given the fact that ethnicity, regionalism and religion are important factors, there must therefore be a conscious will for ethnic and religious groups in all the regions to want to increase their populations and thereby their influence through the ballot box. To tell Muslims that they must abandon the sunnah of polygamy/ being allowed a maximum of four wives if they can afford them - "and those that their right hand possess" should be counter-productive should they believe that this is a smart move by non-Muslims to severely curtail their potential for political power, even dominance - as indeed would be the case if Palestinians were told to please start having fewer babies (for whatever reason)
The solution of course is the evolution of the various part/ mansions of the federation into the consciousness of being one indivisible nation, i.e. that we are all in the same boat.
There's the catholic church and their laws and teaching about abortion, contraception etc., but since Catholics don't practice polygamy which is a main focus in this discussion it's worthwhile knowing a little about
Prophet Muhammad on coitus interruptus .
A well known hadith is Rasulullah salallahu alaihi wa salaam being asked about contraception and replying that those souls that are destined to be born will be born, no matter what.
On Saturday, 25 February 2017 01:10:41 UTC+1, ogunlakaiye wrote:A bat cannot be classified purely as a bird or as a mouse just like Nigeria cannot be classified purely as a Republic or as a Monarchy. That there are monarchs in the Federal Republic of Nigeria is just a demonstration of the political insanity reigning in the country. Emir Sanusi, the monarch of Kano is not entitled to talk on polygamy, procreation and poverty either in his emirate or in Nigeria as whole. He cannot undo us and be our sympathiser at the same time.
As late Chinua Achebe observed in his, Ant Hills of Savanah, the colonial master met two twins in Nigeria, and made one a president and the other a shit carrier. Expanding further on his observation, I would add that the one that was made President had seen to it that the families from the generation of his twin brother remain shit carriers while the President's families are prosperous. All Nigerians, from the beginning, were poor or rich but now Nigerians are divided into impoverished masses and a few minority rich.
Tradition or culture in any society is a function of industrial and economic development. That is why tradition and culture change with industrial and economic development. Despite large numbers of Western educated Nigerians, the traditional and cultural belief in rearing children as insurance towards old age that typified agrararian society still exist today. The more children you have, it is believed that, at least, one will succeed economically to take care of the family, both near and extended. Emphasis on procreation is even more pronounced in Nigeria today because pensioners from states and federal government do not get their pensions when due.
Family Planning Council of Nigeria (FPCN) was formed in 1964 and during the military era, the name was changed to Planned Parenthood Federation of Nigeria (PPFN). Donor agencies to PPFN are United Nations Population Fund (UNPF), European Union, Department For International Development (DFID) of the British Council and Shell Petroleum Development Corporation (SPDC). PPFN has 75 clinics spread over 36 states in Nigeria. Under the pretext of combating invented soaring maternal mortality, the PPFN aggressively conduct abortion, sterilization of women and operation of contraceptives into women. The new name for family planning in Nigeria, as in many third-world countries, is Reproductive Health Care.
In 1987, General Ibrahim Babangida's led federal government, through his Minster of Health, Professor Olikoye Ransom Kuti, and the United States Agencies for International Development (USAID), spent N228 million on Babagida's government population policy of one-woman-four-children. Throu
gh his Minister of Health, Professor Eyitan Lambo, President Olusegun Obasanjo introduced a new population policy of one-man-four children. Neither Babangida nor Obasanjo's government population policy was obeyed by the educated elites not to talk of illiterates that make up majority of the population of the country. Nigeria, at moment, is not suffering from overpopulation but unjust distribution of our collective patrimony. In the Northern part of Nigeria, particularly, the Governors are used to collecting revenue allocations from the Federal government, but instead of investing the funds on education and welfare of their people, they steal the entire federal allocations. Most of them travel to Mecca every week for Friday's prayer. When their people complain of poverty, they respond : Allah Ta Rago, meaning God is the defender of the poor. Not less than 17 former Governors from Northern Nigeria, have been arraigned and charged to court for plundering their states of billions of naira. In fact, 12 of these Governors are from Sharia ruled States but they are not being tried in Sharia courts where they would have had their hands amputated long time ago.
Kenneth wrote, "When we refuse an inoculation for our child, thinking we are protecting it, we endanger all children." I read through the article of Moses, to which Kenneth is responding, and I could not find anything relating to refusal to inoculate our child. Can you please help me solve the riddle, "we refuse an inoculation for our child?"
S. Kadiri
Från: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> för Kenneth Harrow <har...@msu.edu>
Skickat: den 22 februari 2017 18:58
Till: usaafricadialogue
Ämne: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Emir Sanusi on Polygamy, Procreation, and Poverty--It's very difficult for many people to see issues outside their own narrow cultural orbit.
It also takes a small amount of facts to determine how overpopulation impacts the larger community, the state, the continent, the world. We have a finite world, with far too many people in it, given our resources. We'll go own increasing demands for energy and food, demands on water, and go on hearing meaningless responses, like, look how much land there is. that's like saying the earth is flat because it looks that way.
When we refuse an inoculation for our child, thinking we are protecting it, we endanger all children. We need to think in community terms on a planetary scale. Arguments in favor of ethnic or cultural exceptionalism only damage everyone.
Lastly, arguing to a muslim that they can't take more than one wife accords with the qur'an which states you can't marry more than one woman unless you can afford to pay all the necessary expenses. If people ignore that injunction, they violate a reasonable law, as if they are somehow exceptions.
If we think of ourselves as belonging to one large family, then we have to accept the demands of the whole family, not just our immediate family.
That means u.s. wealth and western wealth can't go just to our citizens; it also means what one member of the family decides to do impacts all of us.
Ken
Kenneth Harrow
Dept of English and Film Studies
http://www.english.msu.edu/
people/faculty/kenneth-harrow/
From: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of "meoc...@gmail.com" <meoc...@gmail.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Wednesday 22 February 2017 at 11:51
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Emir Sanusi on Polygamy, Procreation, and Poverty
Emir Muhammadu Sanusi of Kano recently caused controversy by proposing a new Islamic family law to regulate polygamy, which he linked to unregulated procreation, poverty, juvenile delinquency, and terrorism.
In principle, I agree with the emir of Kano's pronouncement on polygamy, procreation, and poverty. However, there is need to proceed with caution on the legislative intervention he is proposing. I am not Muslim or Hausa so I may not be able to speak to the theological and cultural issue at stake. However, I do know that our societies in Africa are driven by patriarchy and notions of masculine pride and dignity. This culture tends to mediate how people see these things.
Like the emir, I used to display an unqualified intolerance for people who want to bring many children into this world despite lacking the means to care for them. I used to preach vehemently and somewhat haughtily against unbridled procreation among my own poor extended family.
Then I decided to scold this stubborn member of the family, a primary school teacher who insisted, as he put it, on having as many children as God would give him, despite clearly not having the means to care for them. Several people in our family had spoken to him to no avail.
Because I was occasionally supporting him financially I felt that I had some leverage and sway with him and could convince him to see what every other person was seeing and drop his policy of unrestrained procreation. The first time I talked to him, he listened to my long speech and politely promised to look into the matter.
A couple of years and another child later, I decided to confront him again on the issue. Everyone felt that he would only listen to me. This time he was ready for me, fuming while listening to me. Because he is much older than me, I took his fuming to be a response to my tone and decided to persuade him rather than scold him for his choice.
When my sermon was over, he cleared his throat and declared that he too had something to say to me. He said essentially that as a man, a man of our ethnic group, there are two things that one aspires to possess in abundance: wealth and children. These two possessions or at least one of them, he said, made one a man. He said he didn't have money and could never be wealthy, having become too old for wealth to happen to him. All he had left to demonstrate his masculinity in order not to be considered a failure in life was to have as many children as he could have and to be remembered for being blessed with children when he is gone. He said people like me who "have money" would not understand, since we already had the ability to possess the two gold standards of manly success. He said if he had money like me, my advice would make sense and he would not need to have many children.
Folks like him, he said, will have lived unremarkable, vain lives if they did not procreate liberally when they were on this earth. With my wealth (he saw me as wealthy) I was already guaranteed respect as a man, and regardless of how many children I have, I was assured of maximum cultural capital as a man, as well as a legacy. He then tried to appeal to my clan pride. He said I was a small boy, that I didn't know that our lineage had been depleted by untimely deaths and needed to be repopulated, and that I should appreciate and support his effort to assure the lineage of continuity and human capital in the future. Finally, he asked if I didn't think it was mean and selfish of me, a successful man assured of recognition and respect, to stop him from fulfilling his manly destiny the only way he could still do so. He was accusing me of trying to stop him from getting to where I was--a place of masculine accomplishment as defined by our culture. He was accusing me of trying to kick away the proverbial ladder that got me to the place of respect he imagined me to occupy.
I was humbled. I piped down. He had successfully emotionally blackmailed me. He had turned the leverage I thought I had on him against me. I came into the conversation on the offensive. He had put me on the defensive. I now had to reassure him that I was not out to keep him from building a legacy of masculine accomplishment. Even though I still disagreed fundamentally with his rationalization of his unbridled procreation, he made sense from a purely cultural perspective, the most dominant frame of reference available to him.
We agreed to disagree on the issue, and I told him that he would see my point in the future and that I hoped that he would not regret shunning my advice.
Even though we parted on a note of disagreement, I came away with a better appreciation for where he was coming from, for his masculine anxieties, and for the unspoken patriarchal cultural pressures against which he was struggling, and which were unfortunately determining his procreation decision.
I knew that he was speaking from a well established cultural script. In my village in Benue state, a man considered successful in the old days would boast that he had money and he had many children, meaning that he was complete. I connected what he had said to this manly tradition of success and fulfilment.
I realized that as personal as this issue may seem, it is deeply interwoven with our society's notions of masculinity and masculine pride, and that unless the culture evolves persons operating solely within it may never be persuaded to act outside of its dictates.
--
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