Sexual Content: MURIC lauds Kano govt for banning some textbooks in schools

The move by the Kano State government to remove some lewd and pernicious teaching materials from the curriculum of both public and private basic schools in the state has received commendations from the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC).

The Kano State government, through the office of the Special Advisor on Private and Voluntary Institutions, issued the prohibition in an announcement made last Thursday.

In the announcement, the state government listed six textbooks prohibited for instructional use, “due to observed inclusion of inappropriate and sexually explicit contents that are harmful to the morals of our young students.”

Chairman of Kano State Chapter of MURIC, Malam Hassan Sani Indabawa, in a statement made available to The Guardian, said the decision of the state government, under the leadership of Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf to prohibit the use of some obscene teaching materials in the state has come at the right time.

He therefore urged parents, educationists, learners and advocates to embrace and support the initiative so as to tame the alarming rise of immorality amongst the youth in the state.

He also called on the authorities to ensure strict compliance by both public and private schools in the state.

Indabawa further said: “As one of the front line advocates for the removal of all obscene teaching aids from the nation’s educational system, we at MURIC rejoice and commend the Kano State government for doing the needful by prohibiting the use of some selected teaching materials found to contain sexually explicit contents which are perverse to the moral upbringing of pupils in the state.

“The surreptitious inclusion of explicit sexual contents in some of the basic education teaching materials was part of the Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) developed by the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF) for worldwide use to promote promiscuity, fornication and homosexuality. This is one of the evils of globalisation. Certainly, this strange knowledge contradicts our faith, culture and values.

“Aside from the CSE, many textbooks used in Nigerian schools have been corrupted with lewd contents. “Nigerians may be well aware that in the last 20 years or so, classical English literature books and novels such as Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Merchant of Venice, Weep Not Child, Things Fall Apart, The Man Died, African Child, Akin the Drummer Boy, Mine Boy, The Delinquent and so forth have been removed from our school curricula and replaced with sex-related local English literature and other science books containing lewd and pernicious matters to give the unsuspecting young school pupils the wrong impression that self-control is unnecessary and that casual sex makes them feel good; that they should engage in casual sex before marriage; that ‘safe sex’ is what to aim for in life provided that they don’t get pregnant and if they do get pregnant, they should go for abortion.

“As we may equally be aware, one of the negative consequences of this is the sexualisation of primary and secondary school pupils.

“Therefore, the prohibition of the use of the offensive text books by the Kano State government must be backed by appropriate legislation to provide a legal framework for sanctioning any erring school authority for effective implementation of the government’s directive.”

Indabawa called on other state governments to emulate the Kano State government by reviewing and removing all lewd and pernicious teaching materials from their various basic education curriculums.