Paul KeenanLeading pro-life activist Obianuju Ekeocha speaks with Paul Keenan
“Amidst all our African afflictions and difficulties, amidst all the socioeconomic and political instabilities, our babies are always a firm symbol of hope, a promise of life, a reason to strive for the legacy of a bright future.”
Written in 2012, the powerful affirmation of life on the part of the young Nigerian, Obianuju Ekeocha, was a solitary cry against the grand intentions of the high-profile philanthropist Melinda Gates for a $4.6billion investment to liberate women in some 69 poor nations through wider availability of contraception, a plan which immediately struck the medical professional as wrong-footed.
“Even at a glance, anyone could see that the unlimited and easy availability of contraceptives in Africa would surely increase infidelity and sexual promiscuity as sex is presented by this multi-billion dollar project as a casual pleasure sport that can indeed come with no strings – or babies – attached,” Obianuju, a medical specialist in haematology continued.
“Think of the exponential spread of HIV and other STDs as men and women with abundant access to contraceptives take up multiple, concurrent sex partners.”
Even if the Gates Foundation did not subsequently listen to Obianuju – she insists on ‘Uju’ at this first meeting in person with The Irish Catholic – many others did.
Today the head of the Culture of Life Africa organisation she founded, Uju can gain ready access to the Catholic bishops of a list of countries which includes Ghana, Cameroon, Uganda, South Africa, Kenya and Malawi.
The 2014 Synod on the Family in Rome was incomplete until she received her official invitation to attend, and, as she sits down now to discuss her work, she is coming to the end of a year which has witnessed a virtual A-Z of locations around the world where she has brought the continuing pro-life appeal for Africa.
Letter
Four years on from the heartfelt letter, there is no ‘weekend wonder’ at play here. Uju remains a most significant figure in pro-life circles – not to mention a thorn in the side of pro-abortion groups and activists seeking to make gains in Africa.
All of this, she explains, is due in large part to her being a personality with a foot in two worlds at once, from her upbringing in Nigeria to her training in medicine in England.
“I can articulate for people in the West what my people think,” she explains, “together with my experiences in hospitals.”
Indeed, it was the level of knowledge elucidated in Uju’s letter that caused the Pontifical Council for the Laity to ultimately translate it for wider distribution, something which played a large part in making Uju a go-to figure on current trends in family life and abortion in Africa (this interview was made possible by Uju’s presence in Ireland to address an Iona Institute conference on ‘How the West Exports its Culture of Death’).
This ‘go-to status’ arises from the fact that, over the years since the Melinda Gates letter, Uju has absorbed a dizzying amount of knowledge on life issues across Africa, and communicates hard facts with passion that is no less heady.
What needs to be understood overall, Uju insists, is the hierarchical structure which views the West and its ‘donor countries’ as benevolently influencing the African nations of the ‘developing world’ through aid and ideas.
“Much that is wonderful has come from the West,” she is quick to state, and counts among these her Christian faith. However, she adds, “the tendency in Western countries is that as they offer humanitarian aid they also introduce Western ideas and ideologies, and ideas are very much tied to money. This includes the pressure to increase contraceptive use and the push to legislate for abortion.”
This, she points out, is especially true in those countries to the far south of Africa, those ravaged by HIV and AIDS. She goes on to relate the experience in countries like South Africa where free condoms are available in government offices and the airport. The result has been an increase in HIV. The reality, she argues, is that the Western approach is doing nothing to help behavioural change towards curbing HIV rates.
Against those who would argue that donor nations have sought to engage in sex education programmes in the battle against risky practices underlying the HIV spread, Uju argues that the content of such programmes is nothing shorty of “disturbing”.
“They include gender theory, gender fluidity and abortion, without any moral angle. Therefore sex is nothing sacred.”
Uju goes on to reveal that the bias on ideas holds even where a nation offers a workable alternative. “Uganda tried its own solution, promoting abstinence and fidelity – what was called the ‘zero grazing method’,” she explains. “But this was criticised by donor countries and NGOs who only had one alternative answer: contraception.”
Uju’s key argument through all of this is that “we can fight this”, that Africans can tackle the ills of their nations if they are offered other than the ‘Culture of Death’
“It is up to individual nations to issues such as abortion,” she insists. “At the moment sovereign countries are being pushed from outside towards legal abortion, under the argument of very high maternal mortality rates.
“But will one solve the other? There is no evidence for this. Women are dying from bleeding after birth, or obstructed labour during delivery. One study in Africa has shown that 30% of maternal deaths result from loss of blood. How does abortion deal with that?”
Stating that “these are problems taken care of in the West”, Uju points towards the kind of medical knowledge that would better serve Africa through transmission.
But, with interest groups having “direct access to politicians”, it is up to “populations to organise themselves to convince parliamentarians that if they pass something unpopular, people will vote them out”.
“The Church is a wonderful network in this,” Uju continues. “The Church serves the poorest of the poor, not only through hospitals, but through school – education.”
The teaching and words of the Church still carry great weight for people because of this.
Again, Uju can offer a concrete example.
“In late 2015, when legislators in Sierra Leone moved to bring abortion into law, a delegation of faith leaders appealed directly to the president on behalf of the people as the draft law was placed before him. To date the legislation still has not been signed.”
As a notable addendum, on the very day Uju spoke with this newspaper, the Catholic bishops of Malawi, in conjunction with Evangelical Churches issued a statement on the nation’s proposed abortion law to the effect that its promotion is “a trap in order to attract public sympathy and also capitalise on such in order to advance abortion on demand among women and girls”.
Boiled down to its essence, Uju explains of the battle for African hearts and minds on so-called progressive ideas that there is one crucial aspect of the African character that has been overlooked – indeed ignored – as western ideologues push liberal agendas at whatever cost.
“Africans have cultural beliefs still strongly ingrained,” she says. “No matter how poor, they still respect life in the womb, and without ever having seen an ultrasound. Human life is respected. That is our advantage.”