Issues bothering on early marriage, health-related challenges, abortion among others would be the central focus in Enugu next week Thursday as health experts including stakeholders in the health sector from across the world would converge in the state to discuss life issues in Africa.

 

Organized by the International Bio-Research Institute (IBI), the two day programme which would commence on Thursday with a conference on “Family and beginning of Life Issues in Africa” at the IBI headquarters in Ugwogo-Nike, while there will be a peaceful march with placards, posters and banners along major roads within Enugu metropolis.

 

The march according to the organisers would seek to protest against those intriguing issues of the society that propagate the culture of death as there would be a major focus on life challenging societal dilemmas such as abortion, same sex marriage, child and mother trafficking, kidnapping, armed robbery, mercy killing, surrogate mother, family hood among others.

 

Promoter of the IBI, Prof Edmund Agbo said the conference which is being organised in collaboration with Steadfast Onlus Foundation, Rome, Italy, would attract speakers across Nigeria as well as from Italy, Mexico, United Kingdom and Cameroun.

 

He said the march for life which is coming to Nigeria for the first time had been held in other countries in Europe, Asia, North America, adding that with focus shifting to Nigeria, the rest of the world would appreciate the fact that though Africans may have cultural problems, they are not as barbaric as they have been painted.

 

According to him, such issues as child marriage, abortion and same-sex marriage had gone a long way in giving Nigeria and the rest of Africa a bad name as they are at variance with the cultural belief of the people, adding that time had come for stakeholders in the health sector to publicly condemn the phenomenon.

 

“This issue of child marriage is a major challenge facing us today. We must re-establish the concept of adulthood. It’s seriously threatening our system. In the same vein, abortion is a major problem which has crept into our national life. If we continue to abort all zigots and unborn children, in the next 100 years, we will not have anybody left to either conceive or abort.

 

“Abortion should be discouraged and condemned in all ramifications. Any voluntary termination of pregnancy should not be tolerated. We must bear in mind that life starts from fertilization. If you by any means punctuate the foetus or zigot, then you have punctuated life. Embryo also has right to life and this right must be protected and not violated,” Prof Agbo explained

 

By DENNIS AGBO

National mirrow