Nigerians Advised to Fight AIDS with Cultures
By Samson Adeoye
June 6, 2004
http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/
Nigerian citizens across the nation have been implored to resuscitate historic norms and values of the constituent tribes as a means to check the spread of HIV/AIDS in the country.
Speaking recently in Lagos at a workshop for students and young adults on the exigency of self discipline as a control measure, the Director of Culture in the Rivers State Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Mrs Chigoziri Job, concluded that the incidence of the killer virus in Nigeria was due largely to a fast-growing neglect for age-old local practices that had served in the past as tools to preserve chastity.
She described such phenomena as virginity and communal parenting as virtues, which could help growing children abstain from casual sex. But she mustered regret that many parents had relegated their nurturing duties to the background.
"What happens now," she noted, "is that both parents are either holding white-collar jobs or are engaged in business pursuits that leave them no time to bring up their children."
She criticised academic institutions for failing to inculcate conventional cultures in students, describing this development as one of the deficiencies of contemporary nations. It is also pathetic that indigenous practices of communal parenting, where every adult contribute to the training of children, has crumbled.
Mrs Job listed other cultural HIV/AIDS "reduction Tools" as honesty, diligence, respectfulness and selflessness, which she observed to have once formed the very fabrics of traditional Nigerian institutions, including political, economic, and legal.
The director however cautioned that these attributes of African societies would not be effective if adults did not personify respectable character. According to her, delinquent adults would face huge debilitations if they tried to instruct or advise the youth.
Responding to the question of peer pressure as a considerable reason for early sex, she argued that it could not overwhelm children from balanced homes. "Where there is love, honesty and openness in the nuclear family, peer pressure cannot make a young person experiment with drugs or sex."
Mrs Job advised that modern religions, with the combination of native languages, should be used in homes for the transmission of norms and values through generations.
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Obasanjo Says HIV/AIDS Rate is Dwindling
From Josephine Lohor in Abuja
June 6, 2004
http://www.thisdayonline.com/news/20040605news13.html
President Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday met with the United States Ambassador of the HIV/AIDS, Ambassador Randall Tobias and declared that Nigeria had recorded a reduction in the national prevalence of the endemic from 5.8 to 5.0 per cent.
The figure is based on recent Sentital surveys. the President told Ambassador Tobias that the United States should appreciate the ongoing efforts of the Federal Government and all concerned in the fight to avoid starting the fight against HIV/AIDS from the start.
President Obasanjo, while emphasising the fact that Africa had formed the AIDS Watch Africa to help check the spread of the disease on the continent, commended the leadership which President George W. Bush had given to the battle against the
pandemic.
The President, who assured Ambassador Tobias that Nigeria would not relent in the fight against HIV/AIDS, disclosed that his concern about the danger posed by HIV/AIDS influenced his decision to host the AIDS Summit in 2001 which set the tone for the launching of the Global Coalition Against HIV/AIDS.
Responding, Ambassador Tobias said that he had come to learn about how Nigeria was tackling the problem of HIV/AIDS, adding that President Bush desired to cooperate with Nigeria in the efforts to check the spread of HIV/AIDS.
Ambassador Tobias, who was the former chairman of a major pharmaceutical company, before President Bush announced him has HIV/AIDS Ambassador, disclosed that the United States Government had set aside $58 million for the battle a
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