SPERM DONATION AND THE URGENT NEED TO LIMIT THE NUMBER OF BIRTHS PER DONOR

About two weeks ago, I had read an article by an American woman who had, seven years after her divorce, decided that she was ready to have children. Because of the (infamous?) biological clock that women yet to have their own children are never allowed to forget, the woman at 37, decided to take the plunge into motherhood. This is normal enough. However, while it is also becoming quite normal for some women to decide that they do not want to get married (again for those who had married before, or at all for those who have not) and would rather be single mothers, what I thought is not yet quite that prevalent but which some research has proved otherwise (at least in Western countries), is the decision for a woman to decide to approach sperm banks to get her eggs fertilized and go the whole motherhood route without at least some man in the background if not by her side.

The woman in the article I read, did it and now has two children she is raising alone and without a father figure in those children’s lives.

Later on last week as well, Wendy Williams during the Hot Topics segment of her Show, mentioned the story of 25-year old unmarried Matteo[1], a Bachelorette contestant who, while a management consultant, also appeared to have chosen being a sperm donor as a vocation. This guy, at 25, claimed that his sperm has been used to produce 114 children! There doesn’t seem to be any information yet on whether all these children were born to women resident in the USA.

A number of countries particularly in Europe, have enacted laws with regards to Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART). In Africa, South Africa seems to be at the forefront in the enactment of a Law on ART. Kenya had a 2014 Bill on In-vitro Fertilzation (IVF) which appeared not to have been passed[2].

While there are a number of aspects like surrogacy, IVF etc to ART, the main focus of this write-up is the issue of how many offspring or live births a single donor’s sperm[3] should be used to produce and how to effectively regulate same especially in view of ART tourism by persons who for one reason or the other, including, but of course, not limited to cost and restrictive laws in their own countries, go outside their countries of residence to get sperms (or eggs, as the case may be).

In the UK, the maximum number of families a single donor can endow is 10[4]; six families in Spain and 12 families in Denmark, in the Netherlands one donor can contribute to 25 families while Taiwan allows just one[5]. Though there is no law at present governing ART in Kenya, it’s been reported that a donor can only be allowed to donate 3 times[6], in South Africa, sperm from a donor can only be used for 6 live births[7].

Whereas a number of countries in Europe as already mentioned, have laws limiting the number of families sperm from a single donor should be allowed to assist in producing children, the United States of America has no such law. At best, what the USA has is a voluntary guideline issued by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), of no more than 25 births per sperm donor in a population of 800,000 people. As has been mentioned however, this guideline is voluntary and in the absence of strict laws to ensure compliance, sperm banks can use a donor’s sperm to produce as many live births as they are able to[8].

In Nigeria, in spite of calls for regulation by medical practitioners and the Association for Fertility and Reproductive Health (AFRH), there is as yet no law to regulate ART. The closest to what may be regarded as some kind of regulation is the provision of Part VI of the National Health Act of 2014 which prohibits the procurement of human blood or tissue or any organ of a living being for money except reimbursement of reasonable costs incurred[9] and mandates the giving of consent by donors[10].

ART is however becoming quite popular in Nigeria and recruitment of sperm donors are reportedly being done in our higher Institutions, meaning the majority of sperm donors if reports available are correct, are undergraduates. And where sperm donors are prohibited from receiving payment for their donations, they are said to receive what is called Inconvenience allowance which, as at the writing of an article in the Guardian in January of 2017[11], was between N10,000 to N25,000 per visit depending on the donor’s personality, academic qualifications, physical attributes among other things. An undergraduate interviewed in the Saturday Magazine of the Guardian Nigeria article just mentioned, was in fact quoted to have claimed he was making up to about N200,000 to N250,000 a month just from donating his sperm. How true this claim is can only be wondered at.

Whether the claim is true or not, is however not the focus here. The real focus is, and rightly should be, as is being expressed all over the world where the practice of ART particularly around sperm (and egg) donations are concerned, how to regulate the number of live births a donor’s sperm or egg should be allowed to produce in view of the very real danger of incest an absence of regulation can cause. Besides the very real danger of incest among siblings is the issue of genetic diseases that may be passed on from the donors to the children especially in places where absence of laws or regulations make genetic testing optional.

In the United States and other Western countries, there already is a big outcry over the huge number of children some popular donors are fathering. And except for countries like Sweden, Australia, and the Netherlands which do not permit anonymous donations, tracking donor-conceived children and ensuring they do not meet and ignorantly have sexual relations with each other can be real difficult. The need to track donor-conceived children is one of the reasons some countries including the UK and Sweden prohibited anonymous donation.

But while the laws prohibiting anonymous donations may work to a limited extent to limit the number of children conceived by a single donor in those countries, they reportedly also had the effect of reducing the numbers of donors willing to come forward to donate. The laws also created fertility tourism with those who can afford it, taking trips to countries with more liberal or no laws, to purchase sperms and eggs. It was reported for instance that the Danish sperm Bank, Cryos, claims to have 1,400 active and real donors in Europe, about 200 in the US and that it sells sperms to over 100 countries worldwide[12].

Denmark is said to be about the most popular destination for ART tourism and Cryos mentioned earlier, is reported to have the largest bank of sperm in the world. Indeed, research has indicated that about 90% of Danish sperm goes to other EU countries. This is perhaps the reason Denmark in addition to pegging the number of families one donor’s sperm can be used for to 12, also went further to limit the number of conceptions such a donor’s sperm can be used to achieve internationally. And so in addition to the 12 families in Denmark, a donor’s sperm can only be used for 6 couples in Sweden and eight couples in Switzerland[13].

Just as important as regulating the number of donor-conceived children per donor is, so is creating a strong process of ensuring that donor-conceived children are aware they were conceived through the assistance of donors, and that they have means of knowing and identifying their half siblings and other members of their biological fathers (or mothers as the case may be)’ families. Indeed, under the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the right of a child to know his parents was given the status of a Fundamental Human Right.

In some countries, donor conceived children are entitled to information on their donor-fathers upon reaching the age of 18. In New Zealand for instance, a Registry for the purpose of access to information by both donors and donor-conceived children was established under the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Act of 2004. A donor-conceived child can thus get access to information at the age of 18 or by Court Order at the age of 16[14]. 

Whereas the countries that have laws and binding regulations restricting the number of children that a single donor’s sperm should be allowed to produce can be said to have taken some steps, albeit inadequate, to address the issue of the danger of siblings ignorantly engaging in sexual relations, the major problem is with countries with no law or regulations and virtually all the countries on the African Continent because of the culture of stigma (or shame) surrounding the issue of infertility will be guilty here. This may be the reason a country like South Africa absolutely prohibits disclosure of both the donor and the recipient’s identities in spite of the fact that donors are required to register with the National Health Directorate and may choose to be informed when their donation produces a pregnancy[15].

In a country like Nigeria where data gathering in most aspects of our national lives is still a very big challenge, preventing incest among donor-conceived children especially where there is an absence of regulation and or monitoring will be impossible. Nigeria’s case will especially be difficult for a number of reasons besides the absence of a law to regulate. Nigeria generally has a history of regulatory agencies that focus more on revenue generation as opposed to their primary tasks of regulation and monitoring. Most important however is the stigma or shame around infertility which would mean that most couples will keep not only the fact of the donor assistance from their donor-conceived children, to forestall the possibility of the children ever finding out; they will also keep it from their close relatives and friends.

 Obviously, a lot of work will need to be done in Africa generally, and Nigeria in particular, to remove the shame and feeling that a woman or a man who for one reason or the other, is unable to have children, is less than whole. This should be done by our religious organizations and bodies who have a lot of influence on their followers. It may be time to start using religion for purpose other than dividing the populace.

While it at first appeared that Matteo’s boastful claim of having fathered 114 children through sperm donation, was far-fetched, some research on the subject soon showed that his claim may well be true. The story of Cynthia Daly who in a bid to connect her donor-conceived son to his half-siblings through a web-based registry but found that her donor as at 2011 had fathered 149 other children is a popular one[16]. There are reports also of other donors each of whom have been found to be biological fathers of hundreds of donor-conceived people. Some donors were reportedly shocked to have learnt that their sperms were used to conceive so many children[17] and one donor has an excel spreadsheet file to keep track of his offspring.

The lack of regulation in many countries have made it difficult to track exactly how many people globally were conceived using ART and more particularly, the Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI). While sperm banks ask recipients to report births of donor-conceived children, only about 40% of births are for instance, reported in the US[18]. Countries with laws regulating ART while able to monitor births internally will be missing figures of those who travel outside to get sperms or eggs.

This writer’s recommendations for keeping near accurate track of births of donor-conceived children to avoid accidental incest are first; as is already the practice in most countries, each donor should be given a unique number through which donor-conceived people can identify themselves as offspring of the same donor. This should work even for countries like South Africa which prohibits disclosure of both donors and recipients identities.

There should also be a central registry much like the Donor Sibling Registry which was founded in 2000 by Wendy Kramer while trying to look for her 10-year old son’s half siblings. As at the 22^nd of May 2019, DSR claims to have 64,186 members inclusive of donors, donor-conceived people and parents of donor-conceived people. According to the figure on its website, the Registry has also successfully connected more than 17,060 offspring with their half siblings and or their donors.

While DSR has done very well in facilitating these connections, it is obvious that a Registry that will be supported by, if not all countries of the world, but majority of the countries will be required especially in view of tourism engaged in by persons either looking to evade their countries’ strict laws or just looking for sperm banks in a country with better donor testing. And for the Registry to work effectively, countries should have laws which compel parents/recipients to disclose to their donor-conceived children their status as having been so conceived. This is most important with respect to African countries whose people seem to have a culture of shaming people with fertility issues. And Sperm Banks will have to be regulated and mandated to keep records of both donors and recipients and to monitor the results after purchases.  

The Registry can still work very effectively with the identities of Donors undisclosed for countries which are still uncomfortable with disclosure of identities of the donors. Other information except the names of the donor can be put in the registry. With his/her unique number, a donor can also track the number of births that have been produced with his/her sperm or eggs. It should then be the choice of the donor to reveal or keep undisclosed, his/her identity.

With well over 5 million donor-conceived people[19] in the world today and with social media and technology shrinking the distance between humans, the danger of accidental incest between half siblings cannot be more real and the need for laws mandating Sperm Banks to drastically reduce the number of conception a single donor’s sperm is used to achieve cannot be over-emphasised.

An interesting point to close this write-up is the fact that single women like the woman in the first paragraph of this article, and gay couples make up a considerable percentage of recipients of ART (at least in the more developed countries even though countries like France does not allow donation to single women and gay couples and hence ART tourism).

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[1] After getting initial information which did not include the name and occupation of the Bachelorette contestant on the Wendy Williams Show, further information in the course of research into this topic was obtained in an article by Sarah Zhang published on May 13, 2019 in the The Atlantic. The article is titled The Trouble With Fathering 114 Kids.

[2] The 2014 Bill was apparently not passed and there’s a report that a similar Bill was reintroduced into the Kenyan Parliament in 2018. The fate of the re-introduced Bill is not known.

[3] It should be noted that there are couples and singles who received donations from people they know. These people are called known donors, and in some countries with laws governing ART, such known donors can be sued for child maintenance. Conversely, known donors can also sue recipients to allow them have access to the donor-conceived child. Though, there may have been written agreements between the known donor and the recipients, Courts, particularly in the US will usually disregard such agreements with respect to the paternity of a child. This piece is however not focused on known donors but really on donors who donate through sperm banks mostly anonymously, whether for pecuniary gains or for altruistic purposes.

[4] Human Fertilsation and Embryology Act, 1990.

[5] A lack of Regulation has created enormous genetic families. Now they are searching for one another by Ariana Eunjung Cha published in the washingtonpost.com on 12^th September 2018.

[6] The number of times a donor is allowed to donate does not however take care of the number of live births the donated sperm can or will be used for. Since each sample donated can still be divided and put into several vials, it means many live births can be achieved even from a single donation.

[7] See: The Rising Debate – Anonymity of Gamete Donation in South Africa. www.aevitasfertilityclinic.co.za published on August 16, 2017. See also provisions of the National Health Act of South Africa.

[8] The American Fertility Society (AFS)’s Guidelines also recommends 10 pregnancies per donor or under 10 if recipients are members of an isolated subgroups of the population: www.scholarship.law.duke.edu

[9] Section 53(1) of the National Health Act 2014.

[10] Section 48(1)(a), National Health Act 2014.

[11] Sperm Donor’s Nightmare: Have I fathered 500 Children Already? Written by Franca Osakwe in www.guardian.ng on 7^th January 2017.

[12] See the article published in theguardian.com/science/2018 titled America’s hottest export? Sperm, written by Soo Youn on August 15, 2018.

[13] Ibid

[14] Regulated Sperm Donation: Why requiring exposed donation is not the answer by Vanessa L. Pi. Published on March 8, 2009.

[15] The Rising Debate – Anonymity of Gamete Donation in South Africa. Supra.

[16] See publication in www.nytimes.com One Sperm Donor, 150 Offspring written by Jacqueline Mroz published on September 5, 2011. By the article earlier cited and titled The Trouble with Fathering 114 Kids, Cynthia Daly’s donor’s children had risen to 189!

[17] One Sperm Donor, 150 Offspring. Jacqueline Mroz (Supra)

[18] Regulating Sperm Donation: Why requiring exposed donation is not the answer. Vanessa L. Pi.

[19] ART in Europe: Usage and Regulation in the context of Cross-Border Reproductive Care by Patrick Praig & Melinda C. Mills published on 13^th January 2017. https://www.link.springer.com.

GIANT LEAPS IN SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

A few weeks ago, I read a fairly long article, How a Face Transplant transformed Katie Stubblefield's Life  The article is about face transplants and some of its evolution and of course, more specifically, the story of Katie Stubblefield who lost her face in a suicide attempt at the age of 18 and was given a face transplant from the face of someone who had signed up to be an organ donor. Katie is said to be the youngest person to have undergone this experimental procedure.

Specialists doctors in plastic surgery were able to successfully remove the face of the now dead donor and give it to Katie so she can live a fairly normal life again. While reading the article, I had several questions about the possible physical, legal and psychological implications of a person being given the face of another person.

First, the resourcefulness and genius of the doctors who have been involved in face transplants generally and specifically those who worked tirelessly on giving Katie the semblance of a normal life again is something to be marvelled at. Katie's story and the doctors' work are very important reminders that plastic surgery is much more than just boob reduction or face lifts. Sometimes, it may be for some people, the difference between living and dying. This may sound a bit ironic especially in Katie's case where she lost her face originally in a suicide attempt. However, the writer of the article took pains to inform her reader that Katie's suicide attempt was a spur of the moment thing and she ordinarily is not suicidal. Anyway, I am sure the point is made that plastic surgery is not just about satisfying some people's sense of vanity.

Now to the several questions that came to my mind while reading the article:

• Having taken another's face, will the recipient look exactly like the donor? If so, will she have to go through life being mistaken for someone else even though she and the donor might not have been of the same height or shape?
• How does someone like Katie who from the time she could look in the mirror and recognise herself up to the age of 18 when she lost her face, cope with looking in the mirror and consistently seeing a face other than the one she had seen for almost 18 years?
• What are the possible legal implications of having a totally different face especially in a country where records exist of the citizens? I'm thinking National passports and other forms of identification.
• Will DNA from the face still be that of the donor?
• How will Katie and other face transplant recipients deal with the psychological effect of not only seeing a face they may not be able to totally relate to and having to explain who they are to friends and acquaintances who might not be aware of what they had gone through?

I'm sure many other questions exist but for now, the above will do.  In the course of the article, my first question on whether Katie or any other face transplant recipient will look exactly like the donor was answered; while the recipient may initially look like the donor, as time goes on and the new face adjust to the bones of the recipient, features of both the old and new will merge into the new face

I am not sure the answers to my questions do not already exist, especially since virtually everything I know about face transplants are drawn from the article I read and I did not do any further research on it. But I have no doubt that there may arise from this new procedure interesting legal and especially psychological developments and issues that may need to be addressed.

There is also no doubt that new developments in science and technology will also bring about new developments in our laws.

FAT CATS, IDPs AND A NIGERIAN TRAGEDY

A few years ago, I attended a lecture at which the lecturer related a story of a director of a big company who, in spite of receiving quite good salary, collected on a monthly basis, 10% from the salaries of lowly-paid workers in the company.

One day, while the director was using the loo, one of the cleaners from whom the director collected 10% every month was around the toilet area and started cursing the director to the effect that he would use the money on some unnamed calamity that would befall his family. The director upon hearing the curse was so scared that he refused to collect the usual 10% from the woman’s salary that month and in fact, every other month that followed.

The director never really got to know whether at the time of issuing the curse upon him and his family, the cleaner was aware that he was in the toilet and could hear her.

Very sadly, what this director was doing, collecting part of money meant for people who had little, to add to the plenty that he already had, has become extremely common place in our country today. From bank directors who outsource jobs from their banks to their private entities, thereby making huge profits from the outsourced jobs, to other company directors who deduct portions of salaries of junior workers under the guise of helping those workers to save (Save As You Earn [S.A.Y.E.] and later refuse to pay these hapless workers their very hard earned money and sweat when these people become entitled to the money purportedly saved for them, to the average Nigerian politician and public office holder who, in spite of already appropriating obscenely high amount of salaries and allowances to themselves, still divert the little money meant for developmental projects and the likes to themselves and their cronies. It is at once a very sad and infuriating story.

The pictures I saw in the newspapers on Friday the 24^th of June 2016 of the starving Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and their children are truly heartbreaking. There are also reports of death of several of these IDPs due to starvation and probably some unattended-to diseases. Some of the reports on the killing and starvation of the IDPs put daily deaths at an average of 30. Others reported that over 1200 IDPs across the camps in Borno State, have so far been killed by officials who feel the extra monies they would get from the re-bagging of rice donated to these IDPs, the diversion of medicines, toiletries, beddings and other relief materials is worth the starvation and death of so many people.

The people who divert all the food, medicines and other materials are of course, people who already have more than enough to eat, drink and wear. But like the director mentioned above, what they have just will never be enough for them. To drive bigger cars, and live even larger than they already do, they probably feel it to be their duty to finish off the job that the evil boko haram started and did not finish.

It was reported that Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno directed the police and State Security Service officials to go after the officials responsible for the deaths and starvation of the IDPs. The most tragic thing about this would however be that in spite of the governor’s reported directive, no one is likely to be sanctioned for the murderous acts of the officials in charge of the camps. All the greedy murderers will most likely get away with killing the hapless IDPs. Like almost every crime committed by the Nigerian elites and public officials, these people will get away with their greed-fueled killings of the IDPs.

Even more tragic is the fact that we, as a people seem to have lost all sense of outrage. The numbers of death and killings by boko haram, by Fulani herdsmen or people masquerading as Fulani herdsmen, by deliberate acts or omission to act of people who swore to uphold the provisions of the Constitution and serve the country and its people are just that to us; numbers. We seem to have lost the capacity to connect the numbers to our fellow humans, to know that the number of dead reported in the various electronic and print media represent people who were actually breathing and perhaps had dreams like some of us still living but whose dreams and lives have been brutally killed by people who just have to drive bigger vehicles, wear the most expensive designer clothes, shoes, watches etc.

With no punishment for their crimes, and deafening silence/complacency from the rest of us, these kinds of criminal and murderous acts will continue and even increase. Truly tragic…

NO IDEA

I don’t know what I am writing
I only know I should be typing
What the content should be
What theme I should pursue
I am even now at a loss
Sometimes, one feels lost
Unable to get up
Not unlike a sore thumb
This surely feels like one of those days
In which everything just seem to be too far away
I am sure I ought to be doing something important
Try as I have to locate it, I just can’t!
Maybe I have too much on my mind
Perhaps I have to search deep to find
Oh yes, I am typing
Yet I cannot say I am writing.

- Adenike Oyalowo © 060616.

FEW THOUGHTS ON DASUKI

I have two confessions that I want those who read this post to know before going on to read the rest of the article.

My first confession is that though I am a legal practitioner, this post is not meant to be any deep legal critique of Sambo Dasuki's on-going travails at the hands of the Federal government of Nigeria. It is merely a casual observation of what is going on in the country and what it could possibly portend for the future of this country.

My second confession is perhaps more serious than the first one and it is that I did not really have the time to go through most of the newspaper reports on the Sambo Dasuki case before writing this post. Yeah, I know, I know, but there it is...

Having read my confessions, you are at liberty to stop reading at this point. If however you decide to venture further into this write-up and you have a violent disagreement with my observations, drink a cup of cool water and remind yourself that you were warned.

For those who may not know who Sambo Dasuki is, he was the National Security Adviser under the immediate past administration of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan. Sambo Dasuki was recently arraigned by the Federal government of Nigeria for illegal possession of firearms and money laundering. The presiding judge exercised his discretion and granted him bail on self-recognition at the time of the arraignment. However, ruling on Dasuki's application to travel out of the country for three weeks for medical reasons, the judge decided to vary his bail conditions by directing that he get a surety on certain terms and conditions.

The judge went on to rule in favour of granting Dasuki's application to travel out of the country for medical check-up. The Department of State Security (DSS) however seem to disagree with the judge's ruling since on the heels of the judge's directive that Dasuki's passport should be returned to him and he should be allowed to travel as requested, DSS officials relocated part of their office to Dasuki's neighbourhood and effectively put him under some form of house arrest.

The DSS claimed in justification of their seeming disobedience of the Court Order, that Dasuki had been invited to answer some questions before a panel on some other charges and he had refused or failed to honour the invitation. In their opinion, since the charges because of which they decided to set up camp around Dasuki's house did not relate to the ones already in Court, they were not flouting any Court Order.

It would be recalled that before Dasuki was arrested and arraigned on the illegal possession of firearms charge, there was also some sort of siege on his house by the DSS.

One of the complaints some people including yours truly, had against the immediate past government at the centre in Nigeria was the level of impunity and the geometric, if not astronomic rate at which it was growing. It is my opinion then that this government has to be extremely careful about the actions of its agencies and the messages those actions send both to those of us casual(?!) observers and to the global community.

First off, I'm not sure what information Dasuki put before the judge which prompted the judge to exercise his discretion in favour of allowing Dasuki to travel out of the country. For instance, is the medical reason so grave that Dasuki cannot receive adequate attention/treatment in any of the hospitals in the country?

It will also be important to know what information the prosecutors who opposed Dasuki's application to be allowed to travel out of the country put before the Court which the judge apparently did not consider weighty enough to warrant a refusal of Dasuki's prayer/request. It would for instance be pertinent whether the prosecution informed the Court that Dasuki is a flight risk especially considering the fact that he may already be aware of weightier charges coming against him.

The above questions are important because those of us who do not have all the information may make the mistake of condemning the judge while not realising that perhaps the fault in a Court's decision may lie with the prosecution. It is fairly common knowledge that prosecutions of high profile cases in this country are largely compromised at both the investigative level and in their actual prosecution in Court. This is not to completely absolve some judges of misdeeds however.

Assuming that in spite of whatever relevant and important information that the prosecution might have put before the Court, the Court nevertheless wrongly ruled in favour of Dasuki's travel abroad, I believe that the DSS, having conducted their investigations and gathered sufficient evidence against Dasuki should just have gone ahead to arrest him on the new charges. The siege tactic first employed by the NDLEA against Buruji Kashamu and now employed repeatedly by the DSS in which not just Dasuki, but other people in his neighbourhood are terrorised is in my opinion, not the best way to go.

This government has to let its agencies imbibe the culture of doing things the right way. If we make exceptions for particular persons perhaps because of the supposed gravity of the offence committed by those persons, we might in future have the problem of the exceptions being used for the wrong reasons against innocent people.

The DSS should stop the siege tactic and make arrests where they have sufficient information and evidence to prefer charges against those who violate the Law. Where government and its agencies give the impression that they can determine when the rule of law should prevail, we may all have to pay dearly for it.

TERROR ATTACK IN FRANCE AND THE PRAYER FOR HUMANITY

a picture is worth a thousand words

The Friday 13th November 2015 multiple terror strikes in Paris and the resultant shows of solidarity with the French people all over the world on social media and elsewhere ignited a hot debate on social media in Nigeria.

While one group believed those changing their profile pictures on Facebook in Nigeria are hypocrites since terror attacks are a virtual daily affair in Nigeria and people do not change their profile pictures because of the terror attacks, another group felt they did nothing wrong by aligning themselves with the fight against terrorism through the change of their profile pictures.

This is of course not the first time this kind of debate will take place on social media in Nigeria. In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack also in France early in the year, a lot of people showed their solidarity by using the #IAmCharlie hashtag on Facebook, twitter and other social media platforms.

Nigerian social media users are not the only ones engaged in the debate about the supposed hypocrisy of people showing their solidarity to the French people in the wake of the Friday the 13th’s terror attacks in France. People in the Middle East are also talking and protesting the apparently skewed coverage of terror attacks by Western media outfits like the CNN and BBC especially because a terror attack in Beirut at around the same time as those in France went unreported.

While it cannot be said that either of the two groups is wrong, it is a fact that the Western media downplays some news items while inundating us with everything that should or should not be known about others even while those they decide to downplay are equally if not even more important than some of those they decide to play to the hilt.

Much as we down here may want to be patriotic and feel for all those killed daily by boko haram (and others who hide under boko haram to carry out dastardly attacks), it may be a bit hard for us and the reasons are simple. Down here in Nigeria, the thousands of people whose lives have been cut brutally short by boko haram are mostly faceless and nameless. Our press, both those in the print and electronic media, perhaps does not know how to engage in investigative journalism. Perhaps they do but the cost is too prohibitive both in terms of finances and the danger to those who may seek to engage in it.

And because all we hear and read about almost daily is numbers of those killed without anybody making any serious attempt to find and interview family members of those killed or even to get pictures of them, a majority of us have, like people who work in the morgue, become “de-sensitised” to the killings carried out daily right in our backyard. I doubt very seriously that in spite of media outcry and global awareness about the Chibok girls and the on-going countdown of how many days the girls have been missing, we can find up to twenty Nigerians (outside of their former teachers and parents) who know the name of just ten of those girls.

If we don’t know the names of the girls, or have any idea how many of them dreamed of being doctors or engineers or astronauts, if we were never made to see what their lives really were before their abductions, how can we really feel a part of the pains their family and close friends have felt over the months they have been in captivity (assuming they are not the ones being used to carry out suicide bombings)?

This is however not the same for any news of terror attacks that the Western media choose to play up. For instance, it is almost certain that in the coming several days at the very least, a lot of people will get acquainted with the families and friends of most, if not all of the people that were killed and injured in the multiple terror attacks in France. We would almost certainly get to know where they grew up and what dreams they had that were cut short by the evil terror strikes. And we would get to see their faces so often that we would be forgiven if we swear we had seen them before.

It is in the light of the exposure given to tragedies like the November 13th one in France by the Western media including Facebook that encourages people to show support by changing their profile pictures that a lot of people changed their profile pictures. Those who did, I believe, would just as willingly change their profile pictures to show solidarity to those experiencing attacks in Nigeria if they are made to see that those killed are more than just numbers and were in fact people like them with dreams and aspirations even if those dreams were no more than just to wake up and go back to sleep at night peacefully every day.

Our journalists in Nigeria and indeed in Africa need to let the world know and keep its attention of the world on what goes on in this country and continent. With social media, this is not quite as difficult as it may seem.

Do we need to pray for France? Most certainly! And just as importantly, ne ween to pray for humanity and we need to pray for Nigeria to see the last of the insurgents and every single sponsor they have.

…NOT REALLY LIKE THE PIG

When a person is referred to as a pig, it usually would mean such a person is dirty, gluttonous and repulsive. There are quite a number of very uncomplimentary sayings and analogies around a pig. A few of them are listed below:

When you wrestle with a pig, you both get dirty and the pig likes it.

…the place is like a pigsty (meaning the place is very messy and dirty).

The pig remains one of the most maligned animals in the world judging by how people (mostly wrongly) associate many things negative including immorality with the pig. Some religions in fact banned the eating of pork (pig meat) because of its perceived filthiness.

It is said that if something is repeated often enough, even when it is utter falsehood, it becomes the truth (sic), and so it is that I was one of those who believed the popular sayings about pigs being dirty. Indeed I was as surprised as some people might be after reading this when several years ago in my second year at the university I read in the general course textbook we were required to read, that pigs were (I believe still are) generally very clean animals if they are bred in a regulated environment. Articles I have read in recent times also point in this direction. The dirty pigs are said to be those in the wild or the stray pigs (like we have stray dogs) which have nobody rearing them. And even for the supposedly dirty stray pigs which seem to enjoy rolling around in the mud, a very good reason has been suggested for this behavior and it is that since pigs do not sweat, they usually roll in the mud in order to bring down their body temperature.

Humans are the highest of all God’s creatures. We are smart, we possess a very high level of reasoning that we may safely say most animals lack. To a very large extent then, we can say that we are in control of quite a number of things we engage in. For instance, the focus of this article is completely within our control as humans. We are fully in control of whether or not we want to litter our environment.

I visited Calabar twice last year on some land-related study and I was very impressed at how clean the place was. No pure-water sachets littering the streets or other such things that come together to make a place an eye-sore. One would in fact be forgiven if one assumes that the good and neat people of Calabar do not join those of us in the South-West in the consumption of pure-water (by the way, do they actually drink pure water in Calabar?). What is even more impressive is the fact that you don’t really see the city cleaners as they go about their duty like we see them here in Lagos. The cleaners come very early in the mornings to clean the city. It is not an all-day affair like it is here in the not-so-clean Lagos.

The fact that the people of Calabar were able to achieve the level of neatness they have, is a pointer to the fact that at least, that aspect of our lives is completely within our control as humans.

In spite of this however, it is a fairly common sight to see drivers and passengers in both private and commercial vehicles throwing all sorts of things on the road out of their vehicles. The first time I saw someone throw a plastic bag and the back of a watermelon out of a car, I was shell-shocked. I have since then seen very well dressed ladies and men driving very nice and expensive-looking cars calmly wind down their windows and throw all sorts of rubbish ranging from the very small to the biggest thing that one can imagine (and even the ones no rational person can imagine! )can be thrown out of a vehicle onto the road.

Where this sort of thing is done by the commercial bus drivers, one may somehow rationalize it by saying that the Indian hemp and kaikai they indulge in have taken their toll on their reasoning ability. But where you find otherwise respectable members of the society who should serve as beacons engaging in this dirty habit…

Some of the articles on pigs go so far as to say that some pigs sometime make themselves ill by holding their urine because they could not get to an acceptable place in which they could relieve themselves. It is in fact said that if a pig kept in a regulated and clean environment begins to defecate or urinate in its bedding, then that pig has a health problem.

Perhaps, one should by the same token conclude that a human who chooses to litter the environment might have some health challenges that makes him/her incapable of doing the right thing.

And so if you are one of the too many supposedly educated people who still litter the city, and you do not have any health challenge which makes you litter, then you are not really like the pig, it would in fact be an insult to the pig to compare you with it.