Re-illegal abortions responsible for mysterious death in Azare- Lamara Garba Azare

By: Lamara Garba Azare

No, Dr Rilwanu Muhammed, Executive Chairman, Bauchi State Primary Health Care Development Agency has goofed.

Ordinarily, one would have ignored such a publication by a wave of a hand, knowing full well that the people of Azare are decent, highly responsible and of good morals. Alas, the fact that the statement was credited to a public officer in the person of a medical practitioner who is occupying the position of Executive Chairman of a highly respected organisation serving the good people of Bauchi state. Moreover, the publication was carried in one of the reputable news organization, the Weekly Trust.

Therefore, allowing it unattended to, will amount to confirming what could at best be described as a figment of the imagination of the authors, a concocted, baseless and extremely libellous publication.

To begin with, no human being in his right senses could even imagine contemplating that someone would think in his mind that upon all places, the people of Azare would allow the decency in them to reduce to its lowest ebb by engaging in an act of aborting pregnancy and worse part of it, an illegal abortion.

To the astonishment of the people of Azare and by extension, the entire people of Bauchi State, we woke up on Saturday, May, 30th 2020 to read a malicious and stunning publication in one of the finest newspapers in Nigeria, the Weekly Trust with a caption that “Illegal Abortion is Responsible for a Mysterious Death in Azare” At first, I could not believe my eyes, I thought it was an old edition of one of those junk soft selling magazine, not until when I go for the second checks that I confirmed that it was indeed our reputable Trust that carried the damaging story.

I was shocked beyond explanation not because of my affiliation with Azare, which is my hometown, but because of the gravity of the allegation. Which has an adverse effect on morality? -Illegal abortion-

Indeed, it should be noted that aborting a pregnancy is a serious crime against humanity which should not be condoned under whatever guise except those circumstances as prescribed by a medical condition.

However, seeing such a caption in a reputable news media like a Weekly Trust must be shocking even to the most cynical of people and of course must provoke agitation especially from the right sensible men in the society. But, in all honesty, I doubt very much that the report in question was not referring to Azare town or any decent inhabitants and therefore believed that such a callous publication must have been what we called the printers devil in the journalism circle.

Certainly, no public officer in his right senses can carelessly and against every decorum came out and announced such a very grievous, unfounded and baseless fabrication of lies such that a reputable news organization in the caliber of Media Trust can have cause to publish it.

Undoubtedly, when I saw the report two things quickly came to my mind which I believed it’s the same feelings in the minds of every well meaning person(s) to which I quickly come to the apt conclusion that, either the author of the offending story- Hassan Ibrahim- the staff of the Media Trust, may have misquoted Dr. Rilwanu Mohammed, the Executive Chairman of Bauchi State Primary Health Care Development Agency (BSPHCDA), who allegedly made the statement or if really it was his wordings, then, Dr. Rilwanu may have some mental disorder as at the time he uttered the statement.

In any way, whatever may be, there is no two way about it that, certainly somebody somewhere was out for mischief for reasons best known to whosoever behind the concocted statement and must sooner or later pay for his careless utterances or could it be a youthful exuberance.

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Indeed, for the public officer to come out with such a reckless statement an investigation must be conducted, now, Mr Rilwanu, whom we suspect was all out to discredit the good image and integrity of the people of Azare as well as sow a seed of discord between Azare (Katagum) and Bauchi District. Perhaps, it is the belief of many that Mr Rilwanu who happens to be a relation of the Executive Governor of Bauchi State, Bala Muhammad was on a mission and only God knows how many Rilwanu’s do we have in the cabinet of Kauran Bauchi. We shall begin to know them by their antics.

The questions now, are; who are members of the committee that conducted the preliminary investigations as he allegedly insinuated? When was the investigation conducted? Who authorised the conduct of the investigation and from which period? Failure to provide convincing answers to these questions by the Executive Chairman, one would not but come to the apt conclusion that either Dr Rilwanu might have had a mental disorder and/or the reporter who carried the story was on a mission to disintegrate Bauchi state for deciding to allow himself to be used by some dubious elements by disseminating a concocted and fictitious news story.

I want to believe that the Executive Chairman of the Bauchi State Health Care Development Agency didn’t make any effort to get to the roots of the deaths in Azare before attributing the mass deaths to illegal abortion in the town.

Perhaps, a town like Azare widely known for its good moral standing, culture and centre of Islamic teachings to be branded as a centre of illegal abortion, certainly the person who made the allegation has some questions to answer before the public and of course before his Creator.

It should be noted, however,  that prior to the deaths in Azare, similar incidents were reported in towns across Kano, Sokoto, Borno, Katsina and Jigawa states among others. It was based on this that the federal government set up a committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Nasiru Sani Gwarzo to investigate the incidences with a view to finding a way of tackling it. However, in the course of carrying out the assignment, the Sani Gwarzo Led committee extended its beam light to the cases in Azare, Katsina, Maiduguri, Hadeja and other states in northern Nigeria to unravel the circumstances behind the mass deaths.

A preliminary report released by the committee in all the places visited had attributed the causes of the mass deaths to excessive heat, high-grade fever, hard and dry cough among others occasioned by other ailments.

For the avoidance of doubt, people of Azare and by extension the entire Bauchi state are a community well cultured with a high level of decency and morality embellish in Islamic religion and good civilisation. Therefore, it is not only surprising but as well disgusting for a medical doctor to come out and say the people therein were irresponsible so much that they supported abortion of pregnancy, Wa iyazubillah.

Luckily and for the avoidance of doubt, Azare town is one place that has the culture of keeping records of death at the cemetery and this was even attested to, by Dr. Sani Gwarzo and his team when they visited the town, in which he said in all the places they visited across northern Nigeria, it was only in Azare that they met a well-arranged policy of keeping records. And this system has been in place for many years. The death register at the cemetery contains the name of the deceased, age, gender, residence and the cause of death.

And to put the records straight, statistics has shown that between 4th April and 26th May 2020 which was the period in which the mass deaths we’re witnessed. In that period a total of 457 deaths have been recorded at the central cemetery

It is instructive to note that out of this figure, only 117 females died during the period under review which represents 25% of the total deaths. Interestingly, out of this figure, 106 of them were female children ages below 9 years and we all know that none of these falls under children bearing age, therefore, abortion is a non-issue in examining this group.

It was also worthy to note that the remaining 11 girls that died were age between 10 to 20 and it represents just 2% of the total death during the period under review. More importantly, also, only 2 girls died while giving birth or died of complication related to pregnancy but not abortion as insinuated by the man suspected to have mental retardation. Now, the nagging question begging for answer is from where does the so-called Chief Executive of the Health Agency got his information? He must prove to the world beyond a reasonable doubt in order to support his claim, otherwise, he should be ready for a legal battle for damaging the esteem reputation and dignity of the people of Azare and Bauchi state as a whole.

I want to submit that Dr. Rilwanu Mohammed had erred by misleading the populace through his reckless remarks and insinuation of concocting false and dangerous statement against the good people of Azare.

He is mischievous and we expect the amiable Bauchi state Governor, Alhaji Bala Mohammed (Kauran Bauchi) to sanction, such a public servant, henceforth, for his careless and fabricated statements which is capable of creating a deep animosity among the people of the state.

Firstly, we demand an unreserved apology from the careless Dr. Rilwanu Mohammed for damaging the good reputation of the people of Azare. Secondly, his actions had proven him to be incapable of holding such a sensitive office and of course need to be taken for a psychiatric test to ascertain his mental balance, in fact,, a petition is on its way to the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria, against Dr. Rilwanu Muhammed for concocting a fake report thereby destroying and tarnishing the good image of a well cultured, highly religious and well-behaved people of Azare in particular, Bauchi State and the Muslim Ummah as a whole, because abortion is a heinous crime and for any society to be accused of aiding and abetting it should not take such allegation lightly whatsoever.

As for the Daily Trust, we demand that it should investigate its reporter who authored the story and let him take full responsibility of his action. As a reputable news organization, it has the honour of reassuring the confidence of readers that what it published are nothing but genuine and authentic.

Lamara Garba Azare, writes from Kafin Kuka, Azare