Nigeria: The Sultan, Cedaw And Our Values

In 1999 the CEDAW Committee, which regulates the operation of CEDAW in countries that ratify and domesticate it, told Columbia that the provision of its law outlawing abortion was a violation of the rights of women to health enshrined in article 12 of CEDAW. On July 1, 1999 the CEDAW lambasted Nepal for criminalizing abortion. On July 9, 1999, CEDAW Committee told Chile that the Chilean laws punishing abortion were violating the rights of Chilean women. In 2000, CEDAW told Burkina Faso to review its laws on abortion and provide for coverage by social security. In 2000 also, CEDAW Committee told Andorra to revise its punitive abortion laws in agreement with Recommendation 24. In February 2000, CEDAW Committee urged Sweden and Germany to increase the social protection of prostitutes in the two countries. On January 17 2001, CEDAW Committee decried the criminalization of abortion in Burundi . On January 23, 2002, CEDAW Committee urged Portugal to revise its restrictive abortion laws. On January 28, 2002, the CEDAW Committee urged Uruguay to subscribe to abortion rights.

From the foregoing, the unmistakable deduction is that CEDAW is another smokescreen to legalize abortion and sterilization of women in the countries that agree to ratify and domesticate it in order to reduce the population those countries by force. Undeniably, CEDAW contains some laudable articles. But from the above examples, you can see that no country that has ratified and domesticated CEDAW has remained free without subsequently legalizing abortion and other bad things. We must be discerning enough to understand the prevailing international politics and conspiracy to undo Africa . As you are well aware, notable United Nations Agencies like the United Nations Fund for Population and activities (UNFPA) and United Nations Agency for International Development (USAID) have been at the vanguard of reducing the population of Africa . In the 70s, these powerful agencies mounted series of over-population-hoax campaigns in Nigeria . They tried to get the Nigerian government to legalize one-man-four-children population policy. They recruited several Nigerian artistes and paid them huge sums of money to seize the public squares and be shouting that Nigeria was over-populated. They did the same thing in Kenya and other African countries. Since the alleged discovery of HIV/AIDS in early 80s (some say AIDS was discovered in the laboratory), the same agencies have been saying that AIDS is good for Africa because Africa is over-populated. Through a Senator last year, the same agencies sponsored an abortion bill at the National Assembly, which was dismissed. Now they are sponsoring CEDAW.

But CEDAW is dangerous. On September 6, 2006, Dr. Krisztina Morvai delivered a paper in New York and called for the complete review of CEDAW. She complained that she could not understand why under CEDAW, the United Nations, has been promoting the right to abortion, legalization of prostitution with a view to depicting women as objects of sexual pleasure. In her own words: " If we take a close look at the text of Article 12, it is difficult to see the origin of the obligation on State to provide certain reproductive health services for women. From the text and the context of the General Recommendation, we can see that certain reproductive health services clearly refer to abortion services. Where does such an obligation on States Parties come from? The international community should ensure that the UN Human Rights Treaties are not used to put pressure on States to introduce value systems, policies and practices that are not only alien to them, but also harmful to women and girls, and therefore should not be conceptualized as women's human rights through illegitimate, unauthorized creative interpretations"

Therefore, let nobody be deceived. There is a conspiracy to dethrone certain African family values, which the West believes pose a threat to the on-going sexual revolution and women liberation in the world. That is why we must thank the Sultan of Sokoto for his foresight in detecting that international Conventions like CEDAW are capable of destroying our values. We would be doing an incalculable damage to African heritage if owing to the lure of modernity,we jettison those values which make our traditional communities tick. For example, the family is the nucleus of the African community. The family, says Article 16.3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is that communion of persons established by the marriage of husband and wife as the natural and fundamental unit of the society. It is in the family that the African child first learns the basic social norms like relating to the others. Parents are the cornerstones of the family. In that natural and ordinary setting, parents impart enviable pristine values in the African young. In his novel, Jose Orlaziola, a hilarious Spanish writer, reckons that when the moon comes out in Africa, Africa dances. What he means is that the moonlight provides the suitable atmosphere for the promotion of the cultural, moral and social life of the communities in Africa . In view of their vital role in the family, parents have been called "the shapers of values of the child". The values which the parents "shape" into the child eventually become the foundation upon which the adult person builds the superstructure of his behaviour.

But unfortunately there is an international conspiracy, championed by the United Nations, to redefine the family and the role of women at home. The case of the women liberators, articulated under CEDAW, is that childbearing is destructive to womanhood. Some of them are even calling for the scrapping of Mother's Day Celebration because they feel that it belittles women. Radical feminists want women to be liberated from the homes and domestic chores. They cannot understand why a husband should be free to leave the home, while the wife is sentenced to stay at home to be bearing children. We are in trouble. May God help us.

Therefore, the National Assembly should dismiss the CEDAW Bill being sponsored by pro-abortion multinational agencies for lack of merit. The United States has refused to ratify and domesticate CEDAW because of article 16 (1)(e) which states that women should be allowed "to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children". This article is another euphemism, which paves the way for abortion to be legal through all nine months of pregnancy. The UN's website reveals the intent that "the Convention also affirms women's right to reproductive choice", which include the prohibition of fetus protection in the workplace, prohibition of laws sanctioning mothers for doing abortion, a mandate that abortion be funded with public funds etc. If the United States , which legalized abortion in 1973 in ROE V WADE, has refused to ratify and domesticate CEDAW, why should Nigeria , where abortion is still illegal, proceed to now ratify or domesticate CEDAW?

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