Animals, Men And The Lawmakers

Animals, men and the lawmakers By Reuben Abati ONE of the fall-outs of the reality of globalization is the tendency in developing countries, in an attempt to keep up with the rest of the world, to imitate nearly every pattern or fad in the West, without passing same through the filter of anthropomorphic priority or socio-cultural need, or developmental relevance. Only a week ago, so much dust was kicked up in Abuja when homosexuals, NGOs accessing foreign funding for the promotion of homosexuality, and the anti-gay movement stormed the National Assembly to argue over whether or not persons of a certain kind of sexual orientation should be allowed the freedom of their choice. The position of the extant law is that sodomy is a crime in Nigeria and the meaning of marriage is a union between a man and a woman. I wonder why the National Assembly thinks that it needs another law to re-affirm this. But nothing for me demo...Read the full article.

[LoveNigeria]

Nice piece Dr. Abati.
While cruelty to animals must be condemned, the cruelty of the ruling elite to Nigerian must comes first for condemnation as you correctly noted. The hypocrisy of the National Assembly stinks.

[nzeifedigbo]

Hmmmm!!!! Abati again.
Was just wondering; what of the hypocrisy of journalists?

[Iyke]

Nice one. "Legislative Afghanistanism" Suntu! perhaps is not just that but the Talabanisation of the legislature. Well there is nothing wrong with animal rights, but as Abati has pointed out there is a serious misplacement of values and issues in the House. The National Assembly potrays itself as naive and insensitive to the ultimate questions concerning the Nigerin people.

[akuluouno]

The average Nigerian is bound to ask and for good reason: How about our own welfare? How about the pain that average Nigerians are continually subjected to? Why animal welfare when there are serious issues of equality among Nigerians? How about the rights of women and children?

Sir
You captured it well. We are gradually witnessing the emergence of a sub-regional clown in the idyllic west African state of Gambia. Not content with his notorious claim of having to cure aids by magic, he has recently embarked on a literal witch-hunt. He allegedly hired over 1000 native doctors from neighbouring Guinea to search for witches in Gambia. So far he has arrested over thousands whom he has tortured and forced to drink poisonous concotions.
Another clown, though of continental proportions is Field Marshall Al Bashir. His deeds, are they not copiously documented in the Book of Jasher.
Coming to Nigeria, it is not yet dawn on creation day wrt good, sensitive and people oriented governance. What with attempts by Aunty Dora to transfigure Nigeria. We the people are all dazed like the biblical disciples. So we have decided to make three booths, one for Jonathan, One for the one formerly known as Jack (now known as Yakubu) and the other for Dora
I will not mind personally making the same booths for the clowns in the National Assembly as they pursue homosexuals, animal rights etc etc to the detriment of more pressing issues of national importance.

[YUAN]

Originally Posted by Abati

But the House of Representatives should be more concerned about the pain that human beings in Nigeria experience in relation to transportation and other aspects of social living. In many parts of the country, the cost of transportation, the inadequacy of transportation facilities, and the inability to access transportation opportunities limit the scope of the individual's expression of the freedom of movement. .[/B][/URL]

Are these people serious at all? Taking about animal rights in a country with array of decayed infrastructure. Traveling from one state to another in Nigeria by road is like a dangerous adventure, fatigue, pain and big torture. When you finally arrive your destination, you will be tired as if you have taken part in an extreme sports. To make it worst, there are endless road blocks of extortionist who called themselves olokpa, there are jobless local people in every locality who think they have the right to collect toll fees from hapless motorist/ travelers for using ‘their’ road. There are also, some uniformed people who called themselves Federal Road Safety officials, whose job are to secure broken roads which are better described as death traps and to collect higher Egunje than olokpa from motorist.
Inter – state traveling by road will make you cry/weep silently with a big pain in your heart for the money you spent on buying your brand new car when you have no choice than to drive the car through some big ‘bore holes’ on the road they called pot holes. Most of the roads are colonial roads which haven’t seen major repair or expansion for many years. Many people are buying cars but the roads haven’t seen major expansion because our leaders don’t project for the future. Have they ever thought, about, what would happen in the next 10 years if people are buying more cars everyday and no major improvement on the roads?

If Rail system is well managed, it is the safest, cheapest and convenient means of transportation; many trains are even faster than cars. What has happened to the $8.3billion railway modernisation project they awarded to China Construction Engineering Company?
Today, People are now building houses and shops and some of our rail lines...

Air traveling is Nigeria is a No go area .

[Law Mefor]

When National Assembly passed a vote of confidence on Iwu was when I realised that there is no hope with them. The constitution review will soon be fully aborted for emphasis!

[eleniyan]

Originally Posted by YUAN

Are these people serious at all? Taking about animal rights in a country with array of decayed infrastructure. Traveling from one state to another in Nigeria by road is like a dangerous adventure, fatigue, pain and big torture. When you finally arrive your destination, you will be tired as if you have taken part in an extreme sports. To make it worst, there are endless road blocks of extortionist who called themselves olokpa, there are jobless local people in every locality who think they have the right to collect toll fees from hapless motorist/ travelers for using ‘their’ road. There are also, some uniformed people who called themselves Federal Road Safety officials, whose job are to secure broken roads which are better described as death traps and to collect higher Egunje than olokpa from motorist.
Inter – state traveling by road will make you cry/weep silently with a big pain in your heart for the money you spent on buying your brand new car when you have no choice than to drive the car through some big ‘bore holes’ on the road they called pot holes. Most of the roads are colonial roads which haven’t seen major repair or expansion for many years. Many people are buying cars but the roads haven’t seen major expansion because our leaders don’t project for the future. Have they ever thought, about, what would happen in the next 10 years if people are buying more cars everyday and no major improvement on the roads?

If Rail system is well managed, it is the safest, cheapest and convenient means of transportation; many trains are even faster than cars. What has happened to the $8.3billion railway modernisation project they awarded to China Construction Engineering Company?
Today, People are now building houses and shops and some of our rail lines...

Air traveling is Nigeria is a No go area .

What's up man, wetin be OLOKPA...shebi na OLOPA...abeg let's not butcher our own language! lol

[Sesan Ibitoye]

Dr. Abati,

A nice piece. I have seen a different kind of "animals" in Nigeria and I have put their profile below. Just maybe these are the ones the legislators are talking about?

1. They live in the bush; driven out of town by greedy landlords.
2. Roads are non-existent to their "houses" so; they just get by using bush paths
3. Of course no electricty as "NEPA" is not available in these hell-holes
4. No security. No health care facilities. These get by using "roots and herbs"
5. I see some of these "animals" relieving themselves by the road side each morning. Imagine; grown men defecating on the road side. (Check Berger Bus stop just after chacking out of Fashola's beautiful Lagos into the Speaker's State for these every morning). They must be going through real trauma and certainly need urgent help.

These may be the "animals" the lofty legislators are concerned about.

[LAN]

Originally Posted by eleniyan

What's up man, wetin be OLOKPA...shebi na OLOPA...abeg let's not butcher our own language! lol

Eleniyan
Please note that for some of our brothers (I know of Urhobos), if you remove the "K", "P" becomes silent. So the alphabet becomes very important for them to pronounce "Olopa"

[Profegee]

What a hypocrisy! The same legislative arm that fails to do anything on issues that bothers on human right and freedom of information bill could give time and energy for animal right? Hmm.

[Showcase]

Originally Posted by eleniyan

What's up man, wetin be OLOKPA...shebi na OLOPA...abeg let's not butcher our own language! lol

Some people write in that form. They write Kpa kpa to mean Paa paa. Akpata for Apata etc.

A good article still. The day may yet dawn when animal rights genuinely become a reality in Nigeria, but I doubt seeing it in my time. Concentration should be on treating the people right. The rightly treated humans will then fight for animal rights. That should be the order.

[Jiggy]

Hi guys, this has nothing to do with the subject matter, but I thought some of us will find this Obasanjo's recent interview on BBC interesting.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00j6bhx

[godfather]

What happened to my post?

All of a sudden the post just disappeared! Did I flaunt any forum rule?

[katampe]

Each time you watch a plane about to land or take flight, and the way the flaps of the wings take position, or adjust, something comes to the mind :the bird, an animal. Its physics was adapted in the design of the aircraft.

Each time you watch a boom lift, whether it is the make from caterpillar or its competitor, the way it lifts materials of construction, moves them, or the way excavators work, and the whole system of construction equipments are designed to work on a construction site, you get a sense of worker bees, I mean their physics of work, or how they get things done.

what is my thesis?

Animals are important to human civilization.Many innovations and inventions came from the observation of animals in their habitat. It is no wonder, most of the developments took place, either from the observation of Charles Darwin and the huge impact it had on biology or from idea that translated into Social Darwinism and the inherent feature of capitalism that takes root from this idea, probably from Darwin' observation.

Here is the point, our most important ideas derive from nature and our closest observation and respect of nature. Any attempt to discount nature's benefits, its gifts and respect for animals that co-habit the universe with humans speaks more to the ignorance and lack of appreciation for where ideas of science came from. It explains in part why we are so careless and so backward.We are not so observant.

Abati's piece while he tries to highlight something important,it equally shows recklessness and an ignorance that showcases the problems with some of our elites, akin to the way the soldiers ridiculed education, something that led to the popular I know no book saying, something that emits our disregard for ideas that their importance are so obvious if we bother to look.

For whatever it is worth, and in its irony would have enabled compassion and idea of conservation stewardship, intergenerational wealth transfer take root. The idea that we can use the resources of the earth anyhow we please, and without preserving it for the generations that come after says something about of state of mind. It talks to our inability to look at the future on a long term.

Abati's article reeks of monumental ignorance, even though he shows slight concern for the plight of the masses. He did not have to characterise the idea of animal rights in such a way he did to prove a point that is so obvious.

[Dapxin]

Abati's article reeks of monumental ignorance, even though he shows slight concern for the plight of the masses. He did not have to characterise the idea of animal rights in such a way he did to prove a point that is so obvious

Your excellency,
I think you got this wrong. I wont go to the extent of saying you are colourised by the vantage position of your own environment by your summation as above.

I whole-heartedly agree, with the slant of RA view. That doesnt make me ignorant, less monumentally - as to the many other benefits of preserving the generation of animals, or perhaps seeing their usefulness beyond the confines of kitchen.

I think it is a question of weight, and time. This is about a national assembly that sets out to discuss the protection of animal rights whereas the entire namespace is one huge collection of violations, artificial one, to the notion of human, let alone animal.

The first rule is self preservation as someone said; I wasn't aware of how europe was setup in the aftermath of their world wars, but I would imagine the reconstruction years didn't feature too much deliberative time, at westminster about the protection of animal rights. I would imagine, it was most probably about the elimination, for life, all the reasons that led to the bloodbath and providing a foundation for a continent that they can all be proud of.

RA's slant, in my reading is weighted against the hypocrisy of dem abuja scumbags(thanks mr Clinton and my grandfather wouldn't have cared to shoot his next game, were he to be alive, strictly because some good-for-nothing collection of blokes made a point about the other use of the specimen in a free-for-all, country we know as Nigeria.

Its all a function of time, reason and genuine-ness.

[dhoney]

U are still on AbatiGate,u are on ur own.The truth is almost all successful Nigerians have one or two things in their cupboard....,if it`s a lie ask Sowore during his days Unilag( enough to make all of u uncomfortable for the rest of ur lives)..!.We have to let go the past no matter how painful it`s.
Let the simply dog lies...!
A word is enough for the wise.

[Auspicious]

Originally Posted by dhoney

Blah-Blahdi-Blah...
Let the simply dog lies...!

Oi, Speak English!

Auspicious.

[phkra1]

Yet another dosage of sanity writeup in an increasingly difficult society that promotes insanity. Kudos.

I bet you the hypocrates behind this bill have abject poverty in their constituencies. Come to think of it, in their families as well.

Hypocrates = House of Reps!

Animal ko, suya ni.

Thanks Dr. Abati.

[The_Elusive]

I know this article is old, but I joined and am adding to this as much of what you say is invalid.

You are going slightly overboard with your view of 'Western' animal welfare legislation, for example, the "Point and Kill" method of serving food is alive and well in many 'Western' countries that have extensive animal protection laws and animal protection laws have little - if nothing - to do with vegetarianism! Animal welfare activists do not act on the idea that animals cannot be killed, but that they should be killed humanely. I agree that in a country like Nigeria, many human rights issues and abuses should be dealt with immediately and you cannot expect the public to act on animal welfare if their own welfare is at stake. However, you cannot ignore animal welfare and the need for humanity. your article takes a ridiculous take on this and for the most part I would like to know your

I have much more to say on this, but I'm pushed for time...