On May 22, 2025, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu addressed an APC national policy summit, where he accepted the endorsement of various party organs, including the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF) and National Working Committee (NWC), as their sole presidential candidate for the 2027 elections.
But, in true Tinubu fashion, he had to make another addition to his growing list of unconventional quotes.
During the address, he said: You dont commit abortion after the baby is born; thats murder.
The statement makes very little sense in the context of his speech. The president was explaining the wisdom of ending fuel subsidy payments when he blurted out the unexpected line about abortion. He claimed the continuation of subsidy payments threatened the future of unborn generations. Only the president seems to know how this connects to abortion.
As has become the norm with Tinubus remarks, social media content creators jumped on it, and it has made its way into hilarious lists alongside his other strange and confusing statements, such as A dead fish cannot be sweet in any soup; they are dead.
For those of us who prefer the fish in our soup to be dead and properly cooked, the quote stands out as more than just another strange, confusing fusion of words to be included in humorous compilations.
It brings to mind how religious and cultural conservatives in Nigeria often describe abortion, typically equating it with murder. Rather than trying to decipher what the president meant, its worthwhile to reflect on Nigerias hostile stance toward womens sexual health rights.
Being a woman in Nigeria is tough business. They have long been fighting to be treated as if their lives have greater meaning beyond being vehicles for childbirth. But Nigerian culture is stubborn and slow to change.
In 2025, we are still having spirited debates online about whose life should be prioritised between mother and foetus in cases of medical complications.
But the banger boys of X have a lot more in common with Nigerias religious and cultural conservatives than you might think. It is the same obsession to prevent female autonomy over their own lives and bodies that seems to fuel both.
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Religion and morality tend to shape debates around womens autonomy. It is no different in the case of Nigerias abortion laws.
Religious bodies have lobbied to keep Nigerias abortion laws unchanged since 1960, despite constant efforts from womens rights groups to push for reform. In 1981, for instance, the Society of Gynaecologists and Obstetricians of Nigeria (SOGON) attempted to lobby for a Termination of Pregnancy Bill but were opposed by religious leaders and the Nigerian National Council of Womens Societies, who argued that it would promote sexual promiscuity.
In 2001, the Catholic Women Organisation (CWO) marched against a law that would legalise abortion, which they called murder. Several religious organisations spoke up against the law, including the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), and Alhaji Yusuf Yusuff, a chief Muslim imam in Lagos, said anyone who aborts a child should be punished the same as a murderer.
However, Nigerias official stance on abortion is hypocritical. A 2024 study in Osun State found that, among women with unwanted pregnancies, 53.5% of those with anti-abortion religious beliefs still attempted to terminate their pregnancies. By contrast, 59.6% of women with pro-abortion religious beliefs also tried to end their pregnancies, suggesting that faith plays little, if any, part in the decision to seek an abortion.
Nigerias restrictive laws have never stopped or reduced abortions. In 2015, Guttmacher Institute, a US-based research and policy organisation, reported that around 25% of pregnancies in Nigeria are unplanneddue to poor sexual education and limited access to contraceptionand 56% of these unintended pregnancies end in abortion. These laws only serve to endanger womens health, driving them to untrained practitioners or harmful pills. According to the African Human Rights Law Journal, about 63% of abortions in Nigeria take place in unsafe conditions and account for 10% of the countrys maternal deaths.
Even the Nigerian military has been accused of forcing abortions as part of its fight against terrorism. A Reuters report claims that, between 2013 and 2022, the military forcibly terminated at least 10,000 pregnancies resulting from rapes by Islamist militants in the countrys north-eastern region.
The government vehemently denies these accusations, and the Nigerian National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) says its investigation found no evidence of forced abortions by the military. The Commission claimed that the militarys structure would make such acts difficult and instead accused Doctors Without Borders of performing abortions in the north-eastern region.
Nigeria currently has the worst maternal mortality rate in the world. In 2023, Nigeria accounted for 29% of all maternal deaths worldwide, with an estimated 75,000 women losing their lives.
With this being the situation at hand, is it not vital that women be allowed to make such a life-threatening decision as childbirth for themselves, instead of being forced into it by the arm of the state?
Womens rights groups and pro-choice advocates make their case with facts and figures. They call attention to the grim reality on the groundthere is a crisis of women dying while seeking back-door abortions. They dispel fear-mongering with the fact that abortions are one of the safest medical procedures when performed by qualified doctors in proper medical settings.
They clamour for the upholding of womens right to dignity through autonomy to exercise sexual health rights, but are met with opposition on the grounds of morality, equating their freedom with murder.
Abortion is an incredibly sensitive issue in Nigeria, and for the women it affects, it is often a matter of life and death. That is why it is so jarring to hear it invoked so casually by the man who holds the highest office in the land, especially in a speech that had nothing to do with reproductive rights. It is strange, but sadly not surprising, given how such moments have become normalized under Tinubus presidency.
His words are puzzling, especially in the context in which they were said. Still, they offer a chance to ask a vital question: How long will the Nigerian woman have to wait before the law reflects an obvious truthher choice over her own body is not murder?
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