Dr. Femi Babalola on Obama, Abortion & Gay
Rights in America
By
Paul I. Adujie
Lawcareer2007@aol.com
New
York, United States
On Tuesday November 18, 2008, I read with considerable irritation and
consternation, "The flip side of Obama" an article by one Dr. Femi
Babalola, an Ophthalmologist and chorister in Nigeria’s federal capital
territory, Abuja, an article in which he used the revered pages of The
Guardian to ruminate ruefully about how his favorite political party in
America, the Republican Party or Grand Ole Party (GOP) lost the
elections, as he stated his blissful unawareness of how America works
and or how he wish America should.
He attempted blithely to make some informed comments on President-elect
Barack Obama and the very nature of American politics, roles played by
the two major political parties, Democratic Party and the Republican
Party respectively. He confessed rooting for the Republicans based on
their arch-conservative social policy agenda which reeks of moral
certitude.
He informed his readers that he was dismissive of Mr. Obama’s
candidacy. But alas, the world now knows that Mr. Obama prevailed
against sundry opponents and those who under estimated and were
dismissive of the then junior senator from Illinois; The world now
knows about the cynosure with brilliance beyond incandescence, the man
who is admired for his self-discipline and unalloyed singular focus,
which in tu
rn, has given America a rebirth and redemption and an
opportunity to look good again.
There is one thing that I could not understand, actually more than one
thing that numbed me upon reading Dr. Babalola’s article. It is this,
in the past couple of weeks disgraceful and more disgraceful stories
have been emanating from Nigeria, there was the Uzoma Okereke, a young
lady who was beaten into a stupor and stripped of her clothes, by
uniformed men at the behest of and supervision by a Nigerian Navy
Admiral! Many Nigerians at home and abroad, including myself, found the
brutality most reprehensible.
It gave us and Nigerian image a new damage and black-eye
Then as if on cue, or almost simultaneously, there was this heart
wrenching story reported from Akwa Ibom where innocent Nigerian
children are arbitrarily and in summary manner labeled and castigated
as witches, then murdered, maimed and scalded by the moronic adults in
these children’s lives, amply assisted by money grubbing pastors,
so-called Christians too!
There are these Nigerian public officials, also known as corrupt
rogues, who have plundered and pillage Nigeria with impunity,
especially in the recent years, while the EFCC is being emasculated in
the most brazen of manner.
There is this pervasive abundance of abject poverty in Nigeria, and,
children are the worst victims. No child asks to be born, and no child
asks to be neglected or abused
; in Nigeria, where there now exists,
cases of abuse and extreme neglect of children, children who are here,
right in front of our physical eyes, are unprotected from abuse and
neglect and the crudity that seems to always rear its ugly heard in our
Nigeria. I do not live in Nigeria, and still, I find every story from
Nigeria very depressing, to the extent that I want leave my abode
thousands of miles outside Nigeria to return to Nigeria with the hope
that some us can make a difference or play a role in changing the way
things are currently in Nigeria.
In this midst of all this bad news from Nigeria, coupled with extreme
hardship, suffering and hopelessness permeating children in Nigeria,
Dr. Femi Babalola is more concerned with retrograde abortion rules and
the safety of unwanted fetuses; His 17th Century abortion logic is so
egregious, and particularly so, when just a few days ago, a report
emanated from Nigeria, in which helpless and hapless children were
being reportedly maimed and or murdered soon after such children are
ignorantly labeled and castigated as witches, all in the name of the
Christian God
Where is the morality and religion in Dr. Femi Babalola’s Nigeria, a
nation that ought to be the beacon and shinning light for all Africans
and peoples of African descent including Mr. Barack Obama on whom Dr.
Babalola commented extensively?
There were these plethora reports regarding children
in Akwa Ibom and
Cross Rivers States who were summarily and randomly branded witches and
wizards, these children were branded like slaves or farm animals for
the whole world to see! And as someone born in Nigeria, even though
living thousands of miles away from Nigeria, I was embarrassed, ashamed
and shocked to view the videos of these horrendous brutalities meted
out to children in modern day Nigeria, Dr. Babalola’s Nigeria.
Dr. Babalola recounted how he did not wash his hands after a golden
handshake from former President Bill Clinton, I recommend that he
washes not just his hands, but remove the wax from his ears and wash
his eyes; all this, just so, he can hear and see first hand, the
extreme abuse and utter neglect of Nigerian children who are already
here on earth, and while he should stop worrying about his rather
romantic ideas about Nigerian, and for that matter, American fetuses!
Dr. Babalola betrays his blissful unawareness with his incongruous
praise-like commentaries about the Republican Party, his Grand Old
Party, GOP; as a result, I would like to remind him that the Republican
Party, the party of former President Ronald Reagan, led the efforts
that sustained Apartheid rule in South Africa and Southern Africa’s
Angola, Mozambique, Namibia and Rhodesia-Zimbabwe, etc; Ronald Reagan
called it constructive engagement, an apparent willingness to engage in
dinner jokes with Apartheid oppressors while
Africans in Southern
Africa suffered endlessly!
Republican policy pursuits regarding Africa have been repugnant,
repulsive and reprehensible! Africans should be unwilling to forget
these quickly.
She was pro-apartheid... she advocated "constructive-engagement" she
was President Reagan's arrow head for warped-twisted foreign policy
that was anti-African, anti-liberty anti liberal ideals of freedom and
a world free from dictatorships.
Africans should be reminded of how Reagan and his Republican Party
supplied the lifeline oils which lubricated Apartheid South Africa, as
America and Britain sustained Apartheid regime longer than was
possible, through the warped policy known as constructive engagement.
And this is the same Republican Party which Dr. Babalola is nostalgic
about?
Africans should be reminded of how liberation movements labeled
terrorists by the US and the UK, the US under Reagan and the UK under
Thatcher wanted liberation struggles in Angola, Mozambique, Namibia and
Zimbabwe defeated. Those anti freedom, anti progress and anti
democratic movement were eventually defeated. Lancaster House Agreement
intended to provide economic relief and land
redistribution-re-appropriation slated for post independence Zimbabwe
were not adhered to; which in my view constitutes the origin sin,
before today’s troubles in Zimbabwe.
There is for me, a clear difference between advocating abortion rights
and gay lifestyle compared with recognizing
the rights of those who
desire abortions and gay lifestyle, a reading of Dr. Femi Babalola’s
rueful ruminations, establishes him as neither knowing nor caring about
such difference. He is simply happy to mouth how it is so Yuk and ughhh
and disgusting these rights of others are to him!
There is a difference, I think, between advocating abortions and or gay
lifestyles, as compared with a recognition of the right of women to
abortions and the right of gays to a sexual preference; Dr. Babalola
does not seem to have any qualms in suggesting the elimination or
decimation of these rights.
I am not a woman, and I am not gay, nevertheless, I find Dr. Babalola’s
complete disregard of women and gay rights unacceptably offensive
The learned Dr. Babalola wrote that women who carelessly get pregnant
should not have abortion rights! But everyone knows that it takes a man
and a woman to get pregnant or to have sexual intercourse without
necessary precautions; Dr. Babalola thinks it takes just a careless
woman!
These moralizing puritanical preachments belies the failures President
Bush wrought on America and the world with his moral certitude of the
gut convictions. Conservatives are too quick to spout moral certainty
about social issues, such as abortion, they worry so much about fetuses
or potential and indeterminate life, instead of lives which are already
physically present here with us on earth.=2
0A poignant case in point is
the news reports and a series of articles in connection with children
in Akwa Ibom state; innocent children who were tortured, maimed,
mutilated and some even murdered soon after such children were
incongruously labeled witches!
What is reported to have happened to Nigerian children in Akwa Ibom
reminder of brutalities of the 17th and 18th Centuries reminiscent of
Salem Massachusetts Witch Trials or the Spanish Inquisitions in parts
of Spain colonial empire, it is a shameful and embarrassing that this
is happening in modern Dr. Babalola’s Nigeria. Why does a Nigerian
medical doctor, an educated man no doubt, a member of the Nigerian
middle class perhaps, think he needs to cry the tears of aborted
American fetuses, even though Nigerian children are being abused,
killed, maimed and neglected in real time and under his nose?
Please Google: What Does President Reagan's Death Mean to Nigerians,
Africans and Arabs?
Paul I. Adujie is a Nigerian lawyer resident in New York, United States
and a member of the International Bar Association
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