The Queen Primer Book
Nigerian legislators in the House of Representatives are urging the federal government and various state governments to prohibit the inclusion of the widely used children’s textbook ‘Queen Premier’ in school curricula due to its inclusion of pro-LGBTQ+ content.
This request was made during a parliamentary session on October 19, as they adopted a motion presented by Sulaiman Gumi. The motion calls upon the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC), a regulatory body, to fulfill its “statutory responsibility of scrutinizing educational materials” before their introduction into Nigerian schools.
Gumi said that the book contains words like “gay”, and “eros” and that there is a covert attempt to slip books with “immoral culture” into primary and secondary schools in Nigeria.
Gumi said: “Queen Primier subtly introduces terms like ‘gay’, ‘eros’, etc, that communize sexual perversion and immoral behaviours, thus exposing innocent children to terms inappropriate for their age, which is unlawful, unethical, highly immoral and antithetical to child upbringing.”
The legislator further emphasized the necessity to, “protect moral values in children and society at large by resisting the use of educational materials that teach or promote any form of alien behaviour which violates the laws and moral values in all educational institutions.”
Bello El-Rufai, another member of the legislature, pointed out that there is a covert effort to “influence young individuals at an early age” through these books.
He revealed that he had to remove his daughter from a primary school in Abuja because of her exposure to the book.
“There is an Act and the terms are clear. I will get personal and tell you that I moved my daughter from a school, whose name I will not mention for obvious reasons, and i found out that for nursery school, they thought it was okay for that book to be shared,” El-Rufai stated
During the plenary session, Deputy Speaker Ben Kalu, serving as the session’s chair, emphasized that the parliament holds an obligation to safeguard the well-being of Nigerians and the welfare of generations to come.
Isaka Ibrahim attributed the “moral decline” witnessed in the nation to the compulsory acquisition of schools from foreign missionaries.
In their collective resolution, the House of Representatives called on the federal, state, and local governments to enact a comprehensive prohibition on the domestic manufacture, importation, and utilization of any educational materials containing content that introduces or advocates LGBTQ+ terminology within educational institutions.