POPULATION-NIGERIA: Growing Opposition To Male Sterilisation

By Toye Olori Reprint | | Print |

Toye Olori

LAGOS, Aug 31 1999 (IPS) - A growing number of women in Nigeria are opposed to vasectomy as a means of birth control, a study shows.

The study, carried out recently by the Planned Parenthood Federation of Nigeria (PPFN), says the greatest threat to the method are the married women who prefer other population control methods to their husbands’ being sterilised.

Vasectomy is a permanent method of family planning that involves cutting and tying of the spermatic cords which carry semen from the man’s organs.

Nigeria’s population, based on the 1991 census, is 88.5 million, with projections by the end of the century put at about 120 million.

Figures published by the Washington-based Population Reference Bureau in 1997, put Nigeria’s population at 107 million, a figure which placed the country as the 10th most populous in the world.

Nigeria’s population is expected to rise to 157 million in the year 2010, according to the bureau.

Latest statistics on Nigeria by the bureau, shows that Nigerian women ranks 17th out of the 20 countries with the most fertile women. Of the 20 countries, 17 are in Africa, the bureau says.

The average fertility rate of the Nigerian woman is 6.2 children in a lifetime.

Godwin Ezeagu, a top PPFN official, says investigations by the federation, show that married men who would have wished for vasectomy after their desired family size, are facing opposition from their wives.

Ezeagu regrets that, while the number of women who embraced the Bilateral Tubal Ligation increases yearly, the number of men who are the target of vasectomy decreases sharply.

Six women, according to the PPFN, were sterilised in 1998 as against one who chose the method in 1997 while only one man was vasectomised in PPFN clinic last year as against 19 in 1997.

The study shows that only 22 men were vasectomised between 1994 and 1996, while the total visits to PPFN clinics across the country within the same period stood at 10 for 1994, two for 1995, 17 in 1996, 36 in 1997 and five in 1998.

“Women generally discourage their husbands from embracing vasectomy. I don’t know why this is so, but that is the reality,” Ezeagu says, warning that, “This poses a threat to the method as a family planning device”.

Ezeagu says vasectomy has not been properly understood in Nigeria.

Culture, religion and the psychological effects after such an operation, were cited by a cross section of men, interviewed by IPS, as militating against vasectomy as a family planning device in Nigeria.

“I cannot do it. What about the psychological effect. You suddenly realise you cannot impregnate a woman anymore. My wife will not even allow it if I told her,” says Sam Ogun, a civil servant in the commercial capital of Lagos.

Yemi Olusegun, an auto mechanic. says: “I am a (tribal) Chief. I cannot stop having children as long as I can still perform. It is not in our culture. In fact it is a sin. It is not in the Bible”.

Olusegun wonders “what if a person does vasectomy and suddenly realises he wants more children after an improvement in his financial status. What if he becomes impotent after such an operation. He will be ruined for ever”.

Chinwe Okorafor, a mother of four, agrees. “Family planning is good but not to the point of sterilising myself or vasectomising my husband. One must think of the consequences. I prefer other methods,” she says.

Defending the method, Ezeagu explains that, “there is a clear distinction between vasectomy, a family planning method and castration. After vasectomy, erection of the man’s organ and love- making can still take place as the libido is not affected while the testis continues to produce semen”.

“Vasectomy does not cause impotence or loss of sexual desire or libido. On the contrary, there is more desire for love making since there is no fear of the man impregnating the woman,” he says.

However, analysts say public enlightenment campaigns such as the ones carried out on condoms, the pills, injectables and diaphragms, which have now been accepted by Nigerians, are needed.

The 1998 PPFN report shows that more Nigerian women favour the pills as a family planning method. “Women are still in favour of pills as many of them sought and received family planning counselling throughout the country,” the report says.

The report also shows that demands for injectables by PPFN clients are increasing. Last year, 40,843 women, for example, visited PPFN clinics for the first time, while total visitors to the clinic stood at 136,928, a considerable increase over the 1997 figure.

The federation also handed out 151,738 units of condom to callers, while 2,599 units of diaphragms were distributed to women.