Our Correspondent|9 February 2019
CALABAR —A non for- profit organization which operates in Nigeria under the auspices of AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), has warned youths in the Nigeria not to engage in sexual act without using condom so as not to get unwanted
pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases.
The NGO which said it was against unsafe sex in its entirety said it was easy for anyone to contract asexually transmitted diseases such as HIV/Aids if sex is performed without condom.
Country Program Director for the foundation, Dr. Echey Ijezie stated this while answering questions from newsmen in Calabar at the end of a
sensitization rally organized by AHF to market the idea of safe sex stressing that consequence of having unsafe sex
outweighed sex with condom.
Ijezie who spoke on the theme: Safer is fun sex without condom often
times leads to situation where young girls have babies when they aren't prepared to play motherly roles, have sexually transmitted diseases that take victims to early graves.
The rally had members of the NGO going round the streets of Calabar
distributing packs of condoms to residents of the state.
Country programme director stressed that the AHF decided to organized
the rally to mark the 2019 international Condom Day.
Ijezie while addressing the participants at College of Health Technology play ground Calabar, urged warned youths to be weary of the dangers of having sex without use of condom.
He said if people have the intention to live long in life risky behavior like sex without condom should be avoided saying it was unsafe for people who are not married to engage in sex without condom.
The Country director stressed that it was wise for young people to abstain from sex rather than engaged in unsafe sex which has more consequences.
On why the awareness campaign was carried on by the NGO, Dr. Ijezie stressed that the campaign is inevitable to ensure that young people who are known to be sexually active have it at the back of
their minds that it was risky to be engage in unsafe sex.
When asked if the distribution of condoms will not amount to
encouragement of promiscuity to residents of the state, Ijezie said
that sex was a thing that was synonymous with life and as such cannot be completely be ignored.
In his words, Ijezie said, “We are creating awareness for the use of condom because condom is still the cheapest and the safest method of preventing HIV, sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancies.
“We are distributing 600,000 condoms during this period across the
five states of our operation in Cross River, Anambra, Benue, Kogi,
Nassarawa and FCT Abuja. These condoms are for free and we want
persons to use them to protect themselves and stay healthy. That is
why we are marking International Condom Day. The day is usually marked
every 13th of February but because of activities taking place around
that time, we had to mark it today.
“There is a wide range of activities AHF is involved in, including entrepreneurship training, community mobilization, support services for HIV testing and treatment. The essence of what we are doing is for safety and not promotion of promiscuity. People are sexually active.
You can’t run away from that fact. We want them to ensure that they
practice safe sex.”
Ijezie said AHF, which has been in existence in Nigeria since 2011 and
operates in five states and the Federal Capital Territory, is in 43 countries across the world and 13 of the countries are in Africa.
“We are at the forefront of promoting abstinence and we also preach
against discrimination and stigmatization,”.
The used of condom awareness campaign was rounded off with a football tournament between Football club vs Condom FC football club.