Medical doctors and some other indigenes of Imo are planning a million-man march for the abrogation of a law legalising abortion in the state.
The Gender and Equal Opportunities Law was enacted by the Gov. Achike Udenwa administration.
The Chairman, General and Private Medical Practitioners Association of Nigeria, Dr Philip Njemanze, disclosed the planned demonstration in an interview on Sunday with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
He said that the law could destroy the citizens of the state.
“The law enacted during Achike Udenwa’s tenure was intended by the proponents to bring a kind of equality between men and women but the law does anything but that.
“We have given the state House of Assembly two weeks to look at the law and abrogate it.
“ If we do not get this law abrogated, we are organising a million-man march and we will march through the city of Owerri.
“We believe that we will get support of this current administration because we know there are reasonable people who would not allow our culture to be eroded,’’ he noted.
He alleged that the law was masterminded by some Europeans with ulterior motives.
Njemanze noted that legitimising abortion would endanger the lives of many women besides turning the state into a house for shedding the blood of unborn child.
?“The risk is that the child will die and the mother will likely die during a birth.
“There is no way legitimising abortion can promote women’s rights,” the medical expert said.
Njemanze, also the Chairman, Chidicon Medical Centre, Owerri, noted that the law also provided that citizens of the state were free to choose spouses of their choices.
“This, by implication, promotes same sex marriage which most Nigerians find loathsome,’’ he told NAN.
He said that the law equally provided that women could be traditional rulers – a development, he said, was alien to Africa.
Njemanze said that the law banned the use of books with stereotypes of women in schools.
He noted that that, by interpretation, the law banned the use of the Bible and the Koran in schools since they were full of stereotypes of women.
“Imo State is the only state that passed this law even though it was sent to all the state Houses of Assembly in the country.
“When the other Houses read it, they threw it out. How can Imo be an exception?
“This law has been taken to the National Assembly and the legislators threw it out.
“ How can Imo, a state within the federation, pass a law that the National Assembly has thrown out?’’ he asked.
Njemanze urged all well meaning indigenes of the state to seek the abrogation of the law. (NAN)