Abortion is a rampant phenomenon which takes place in every part of the globe, campuses not excluded. Some female students engage in termination of fetus while on campus. It was gathered from experiences and stories shared by some students that feticide is being carried out in schools almost everyday.
Although abortion is illegal in Nigeria, a large number of unauthorized and unapproved pregnancy termination takes place within the campuses regularly, often without the consent or supervision of a medical personal.
From the reports of students, it is likely that the innocent child sent to school may not be coming back home after graduating from the institution, not only do some lose their virginity on campus but also kill their first child in school. Feticide is no longer once in a blue moon but rather carried out almost everyday as though it’s just passing urine out of the body.
Presumably, a good number of of students who left home with sound morals and upbringing end up taking a nosedive moraly on the campus due to the surroundings, peer influence mostly and sometimes as a result of the family’s inability to provide for them. Though some students have only been cloaking themselves in a gown of innocence while at home, many of them have special desires of taking the other side of life which they may have been prevented from because of home training and discipline.
Mama, a cleaner at a female campus said, “I almost weep sometimes while cleaning the ladies restroom, discover terminated pregnancies in the bathroom and sometimes pregnancy test kits with positive results left by a student whom I don’t think is married or her parents even knowing what their child is doing in school. Some of the students have done it continuously without regretting or learning.”
Though some of them have their reasons best known to them, others are independent and mostly sponsor themselves in school, which may lead them into doing things that may result to pregnancy out of wedlock, it does not really make it right or serve as an excuse.
Obviously, some of the students never wanted to get themselves in such situations but the temptation and desire to do and try things they shouldn’t have mostly leads them to unwanted pregnancies which they feel the best available option is to terminate without considering the consequences.
Mariyam Zakari, a 300 Level student of Bayero University (BUK) said; “I think it’s very important to know the kind of people you go out with and avoid negative peer influence, I remember a friend of my roommate was once drugged and forced into sex which could have led to an unwanted pregnancy or even any kind of STD.”
She added: “What mostly leads to unwanted pregnancy too much confidence in contraceptives which may fail sometimes, as such a student has no option than to abort it. My advice to our sisters is to try as much as possible to avoid anything that may lead to unwanted pregnancy no matter the temptation.”
Though some students agree that termination of pregnancy should not be an option, others are of the view that it is very necessary to do so because not only is the society discouraging keeping unwanted pregnancies with their reactions towards the victims, the family as well don’t make it easy for the victims.
A student of Kano Polytechnic, Faridah Usman said: “Though I am not the kind of person who engages in sexual activities, I still don’t think I am going to allow myself give birth to a child if I happen to become pregnant, because most of the people who did it served as lessons to others through the kind of treatment they were given by the society and some family members. So I think the society is highly contributing to the frequent abortions that are taking place in the society at large not only on campus”
Though sent to school for a better life and promising future, some female students on campus end up being killed, and now it seems the home training inculcated in some really isn’t enough to be a guide, as such other measures need to be taken.
Considering the recent event in BUK where over 10 females came for malaria test and the test result turned out to be confirmation of pregnancies, it is obvious that most of the girls are certainly going to terminate the pregnancies. This is what is going on in higher institution campuses now.
Anfani wrote from Kano
