Mahmud Jega
A story that was trending in Nigeria at the weekend, of a young man who impregnated nineteen different women at an Abuja estate, reminded me of the five-star American General Douglas MacArthur, whose biography I read long ago in secondary school. As Supreme Commander of Allied Powers [SCAP] in the Pacific during World War Two, he led the way to the defeat and conquest of Japan. After the Empire of Japan surrendered in 1945 and US troops occupied it, President Harry Truman appointed MacArthur as Military Governor of Japan and Head of the Military Government of the Occupation. In that capacity he presided over war crimes trials, demilitarisation of Japan and the creation of a new, Western-style Japanese constitution.
MacArthur then made Japan, whose political system was previously dominated by aristocrats, militarists and industrialists, to hold its first free-wheeling democratic elections in 1947. The candidate who got the highest votes in the elections turned out to be Tokyo’s most prominent prostitute and brothel owner. Japanese officials gleefully went to inform MacArthur of this fact, hoping to shame him that liberal democracy is a decadent system unfit for Japanese society. After calmly listening to the story, MacArthur asked how many votes she got. Nearly half a million, he was told. The gruff American General then said, “She must be a hard working woman.”
While visiting the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission [NiDCOM] headquarters in Abuja last week, Director General of National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons [NAPTIP], Hajiya Binta Adamu Bello, announced that her agency busted a baby factory inside an Abuja estate and rescued nineteen women who were found to have been impregnated by the same man. Hajiya Binta was alarmed; she clearly viewed it as a monumental scandal; she declared that trafficking should be declared a national emergency and she called on all government agencies to put heads together in order to stem it. Chairperson/CEO of NIDCOM, Mrs. Abike Dabiri Erewa, apparently agreed; she also called for inter-agency collaboration to fight the menace.
Why didn’t these two grand women see the positive side of it? One [obviously young] man who can impregnate 19 women at a go, within a short period of time, must be a very hard working man, to quote MacArthur. He could actually be an export-grade national asset. Instead of gnashing their teeth, NIDCOM and NAPTIP should collaborate with NAFDAC, SON, Ministry of Commerce, Nigeria Export Promotion Council, Export Processing Zones, Nigeria Investment Promotion Council, Ease of Doing Business, Nigeria Customs Service and Nigeria Local Content Development Board to package this young man for export to countries whose populations are falling due to apparent shortage of masculine vigour.
In Japan, for example, the population declined from 128 million people in 2010 to 124.4 million people in 2023, and is further expected to fall to 97 million by 2050. Last year, 1000 Japanese women together produced only 1.3 kids, compared to 44.5 kids produced by 1,000 Niger Republic women and 34 kids by 1,000 Nigerian women. Pray, where will Toyota, Sony, Hitachi, Datsun, Sanyo and Daihatsu get engineers and technicians in the coming years to produce hi-tech vehicle and electronics, or even to catch fish in the Pacific Ocean? Other countries with very low birth rates include Hong Kong, South Korea, Ukraine and Italy. Where will Samsung, Hyundai, LG and other chaebols get engineers to produce semiconductors, smart phones and KIA cars in years to come? In Russia too, where men are badly needed to wage war in Ukraine, the population is expected to fall from the current 146 million to 121 million by 2050. The former Red Army will soon have smaller battalions to wage war.
Even China, its roaring economy may ultimately falter because its population is expected to drop from the current 1.4 billion to 1.3 billion in 2050 to below 800 million in 2100 AD. Dizzying economic growth and lifting 500 million out of poverty within three decades is coming at a high price. All through the centuries, smallish Chinese men performed optimally in their beds even while they were tilling rice fields, building the Great Wall and building canals to tame the Yangtze and Huang Ho rivers. But now, with increasing prosperity, they are no longer performing optimally and the Communist Party may soon seek foreign help.
Why can’t we package this man from the Abuja estate for lucrative export to these countries? I blame the Nigeria Export Promotion Council for failing in its duties. Can’t it see that crude oil prices are falling this year, and oil itself may no longer be our main export commodity, either because it has been drained out of the ground, or because oil thieves have taken all of it, or because Oyinbo engineers have found a technological alternative to fossil fuel and no one needs petrol or even Compressed Natural Gas again? The relevant committee of the National Assembly should hold an urgent public hearing to determine why NEPC, despite its huge budget, failed to harness a lucrative national export item when it is sitting on its laps.
At the ceremony in question, NIDCOM chairperson Mrs. Abike Dabiri Erewa said NIDCOM, NAPTIP and Ministry of Youths must all join hands together to stop the trafficking of women within the country and across our borders. That is ok; we should stop our young women from being trafficked abroad because we are short of beautiful young girls here in Nigeria. Not only will they fill the skilled labour gaps where our young men today are increasingly failing, but they are the sisters, wives, mothers and aunties of tomorrow who will incubate, birth, nurture, discipline, socialise, educate and orient the next generation of Nigerians. No, we cannot afford to export them legally or illegally through trafficking.
The boys, however, are a different matter, especially a vigorous one such as the stud at the Abuja Estate. Why, we have a surplus of them. You see, if one young man unaided can impregnate 19 women within a short period of time, what will we do with all the surplus energetic young men? All those nineteen women already impregnated by this lone stud will not be available for action again for nearly two years, nine months of pregnancy, a lot of sickness and many more months before weaning. That leaves us with a lot of frustrated young men standing idly by for all that long.
Some years ago when the then Minister of Agriculture in the Buhari Administration, Chief Audu Ogbeh, was toying with the idea of importing ox semen from Holland and Argentina in order to improve the yield of our local cattle, I warned him to desist. It was the former Director of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture’s Livestock Department Dr. Junaidu Maina who once said our local cattle breed are not suitable for ranching because they are temperamental. They will gore a herdsman or even a passerby at the slightest opportunity. I warned Chief Ogbeh that if he resorted to importing foreign semen, it will worsen the temperament of our local bulls who will be made to sit idly by while the cows are being artificially impregnated.
The same thing may be happening with our local boys. Just one boy impregnates 19 women; what does he want eighteen other boys to do? That is where the Export Promotion Council comes in. It should package a brilliant advertorial and print a colourful brochure on the vigour of young Nigerian men. It should then acquire a NAFDAC or SON number; invite investors to properly feed, clothe and groom them for suitable appearance before Japanese, Korean and Chinese maidens. I know it is not easy because we need special schools to train them on the cultural expectations of those societies.
Many years ago, I sat alongside my daughter to watch the Chinese cartoon film Mulan. I saw in there how marriage-age Chinese girls are sent to a special center to be trained and prepared to handle husbands and in-laws. In Nigeria we have similar centers in Calabar, though it is said they specialize in fattening would-be brides. Unlike Caucasian and Asiatic men who think slim is beautiful, African men believe plump is best. Especially in one part of Nigeria that I refuse to name.
You see, any vigorous animal should be treated as a showpiece national asset. During one of his televised media chats, President Olusegun Obasanjo once told the story about his 1980s visit to Cuba. After visiting the countryside, he returned to Havana and met Comrade Fidel Castro. Fidel asked him whether he saw one champion cow that produced 30 litres of milk a day. Obasanjo said he expressed surprise how Castro, with all the national and international issues on his plate, will know about such a cow. Fidel then said, “When you were Head of State of Nigeria, didn’t you pay close attention to wells that produced your crude oil? That cow is my oil well.”
In which case, State House should identify this young man in the Abuja estate, pay close attention to him, deploy dieticians to feed him well, send doctors to properly take care of his health, procure supplements to increase his vigour, provide him with adequate security cover and a motorcade, bestow him with a national honour of at least GCON, package him well and publicise him at a special promotional event attended by all foreign ambassadors and high commissioners in Nigeria, especially those from countries with low birth rates, and then offer to lease him to them in order to shore up their sagging populations.
We must retain the copyright. We will not sell; we will only lease. At the turn of the 20th century when American engineer Howard Hughes invented the oil drilling rig, he refused the rig; he will only lease it to another oil driller. When a US Senate committee accused him of monopoly, Hughes said, “No, no. There is no monopoly. Anyone who does not want to lease the Hughes tool to drill for oil can use an axe and a shovel.”
We will not sell our vigorous young man. We can only lease him out for short periods, at a high premium. Any country with a declining population that does not want to lease the Nigerian Super Stud can go use their flabby and flagging men.
