Inclusion of homosexuality into Nigerian primary and secondary textbooks: A Direct Attack To Our Religious and Cultural Values, by Kabir Dalha Kabir

Inclusion of homosexuality into Nigerian primary and secondary textbooks: A Direct Attack To Our Religious and Cultural Values, by Kabir Dalha Kabir

I was seriously shocked to have come across a complain letter written by the Muslim Students Society of Nigeria (MSSN) to Hon. Minister of Education dated 15th May 2023 with title: INCLUSION OF SEX AND HOMOSEXUALITY IN NIGERIAN PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS: A THREAT TO MORALITY AND ATTACK ON CULTURAL/RELIGIOUS VALUES.

When I went through the contents of the letter, I was devastated and my heart ached seriously. I was lost and deeply touched. In the said letter, which I will quote some of the contents here, the students were very explicit and detailed in driving their points, they quoted the books and pages where the inclusion was inserted, I was really like, how can our government be so careless to have overlooked these terrible inclusions. Let me quote from the letter:

“We are appalled by the content in some Mathematics, English, and Social Science textbooks used in many Nigerian secondary schools today. These textbooks have been corrupted to include lewd and sexually explicit matters to sexualize young students. For instance, a typical Mathematics question for primary school pupils is “20 condoms + 5 condoms – 2 condoms equals”. Furthermore, some of the textbooks promote abortion, LGBT, masturbation, and safe sex with condoms.

They include Basic Science Junior Secondary School Razat Publishers, 2018 edition, (for JSS3). Open pages 78 83 to see the harmful contents of the book- lesson on teenage pregnancy, types of abortions students can do, myths & facts about pregnancy, indoctrination of the pupils on the terminology of unsafe & safe abortion, six ways to prevent pregnancy with contraceptives, how to enjoy ‘safe sex’ without pregnancy false information on four types of abstinence of which none is the actual definition of abstinence to be promoted among adolescents.

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Active Basic Science, 2014 edition By Tola Anjorin, Okechukwu Okolo, Philias Yara, Bamidele Mutiu, Fatima Koki, Lydia Gbagu: See Pages 31- 34. Cry for Justice by Ademola Adefila; See Pages 60-61, 64-65, and read the description of having sex and sexual experience. Stigma by Samson O Shobayo, See the pages. The book encourages sexual relationships with HIV patients; kissing.

Basic Science & Technology for Junior Secondary School 1, 2 and 3: By W.K Hamzat, S. Bakare: See Pages 29- 47 Pages 48-52 Page 64 Pages 67- 73, and Pages 86 of the three books which promote abortion, LGBT, masturbation and safe-sex with condoms.
New Concept English for Senior Secondary Schools for SSS2, Revised edition (2018 edition) by J Eyisi, A Adekunle, T Adepolu, F Ademola Adeoye, Q Adams and, J Eto, See Pages 103- 104 that contain obscene and vulgar expressions such as small men always thinking small and acting small and these vulgar words: He swore by the grey hairs of his head and his penis even by the cunt of his mother.” Unquote.

For reference purposes, parents may wish to check the books and pages mentioned to confirm otherwise.

Going forward, when I read to the end, I now told myself two or three things, that;
1. This fight is for all reasonable Nigerians, not the MSSN because our religious and cultural values are at stake.
2. The students were very soft and mild in presenting this abomination.
3. It is outrightly Unacceptable.

With the above 3 things in my mind, I decided to kickstart this campaign.

We must tell ourselves the home truth that slowly our values as a people are rapidly eroding to such an extent that we are heading to a valueless society, which if we fold our arms and overlook it, we will all be consumed by it. To now allow things like these to pass under our noses and ignore them as if it is at least, is irresponsible to the very society and community that immensely helped us to be what we are today.

If we allow sex and homosexual education to be taught to our pupils right from primary school, upon all the present decay of values, then we might as well forget anything called religious, cultural, or moral values. This is for sure!

Let me remind us that, recently, during President Buhari’s tenure, the Western world introduced and adopted gay marriage in most of their countries, including some African countries (I cannot remember), but our country, Nigeria vehemently rejected that evil and devilish proposal upon all the threats and blackmail, and 99% of the citizens agreed with the position of our government then. This support came because we still uphold our religious and cultural values, irrespective of our religious differences, I believe no religion accepts gay marriage, and Nigerians are very religious, and no culture accepts it as well, and mind you these values are taught right from childhood. So if these values are broken from the very root, one can imagine what will happen if that proposal is reintroduced shortly, which I am sure is the motive.

So this is not a students’ or Muslim’ war alone, but a Nigeria’s war that cuts across all religions and cultures, we must all rise and fight it together. The students put it mildly by calling it a threat, but it is a direct attack on our religious and cultural values, which is outrightly unacceptable and must be said very loudly and clearly by all of Us.

We are therefore calling on the Federal Ministry of Education to as a matter of serious concern remove all the mentioned books from the curriculum of our educational system and put an immediate stoppage to the ones in circulation. Our religions and cultures are inculcated into our values which must not be tampered with by any foreign importation. Our values are sacrosanct. Period!

A stitch in time saves many.

Kabir Dalha Kabir writes from Kano.