Feature

CUSTODIAN EDITORIAL: THE PROBLEM WITH NIGERIA’S ANTI-GAY LAW

By Seun Pinheiro First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out–because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the communists and I did not speak out–because I was not a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out–because I was not a trade […]

By

Culture Custodian Editorial Team

11 years ago

By Seun Pinheiro

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out–because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the communists
and I did not speak out–because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out–because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me—
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Pastor Martin Niemoller

Two months ago Nigeria passed an Anti-Gay law which bans same-sex marriages, gay groups and shows of same-sex public affection. Now, when I’m in Nigeria, I spend all of my time in what I feel is the most ‘liberal’ state in the country, Lagos. I have never seen gays show affection in front of me nor have I ever seen or heard about gay couples who are married. But I guess The Senate and President Jonathan have, so it must have really grossed them out.

I’m lucky enough to have travelled around the world. I’ve seen a lot of beautiful places, Paris, Milan, New York, the buildings, the cars, the statues and monuments etc, all incredible. However that’s not what makes a country beautiful, it helps a lot seeing it’s the first thing people see, but what makes a country beautiful is the type of people it has. From that I can say Nigeria is one of the most beautiful countries I’ve ever seen. Too bad we decide to show our ugly side way too often. That’s what the Anti-Gay law is to me in Nigeria, ugly.

“Any person who registers, operates or participates in gay clubs, societies and organizations or directly or indirectly makes public show of same-sex amorous relationship in Nigeria commits an offence and shall each be liable on conviction to a term of 10 years in prison,” Funny how 44 words taint an entire country of 160 million.

The people who support the law are not the problem with Nigeria, rather their mentality and way of thinking is. As long as the majority of the people in Nigeria continue to think like this, we may progress but we will never achieve our full potential.

In Nigeria, most of the population is affiliated to a particular religion. When asked “What’s wrong with being gay?” a very common answer is “It’s not of God”. Now before debating what’s in the bible or Quran, let’s look at the political system in Nigeria. Nigeria is a democracy. Religion should have no influence on the law; politicians should not make decisions based on their religion. It’s often said that Religion is the root cause of most wars. You can’t govern a country based on what the bible teaches simultaneously with what the Quran teaches, and let’s not forget about the people who aren’t Muslim or Christian or don’t even believe in a God. Religion can serve as a guide but it shouldn’t be infallible.
I had an argument with someone who said “Being gay is a thing of the West”. That’s not true. The west is just more tolerant. That’s not to say they still don’t face persecution. Did you know that scientists recently discovered that there were gay Egyptians in Ancient times? Is Egypt in the west? They’re gays in Russia too, is Russia in the west?

The only thing more irritating than a homophobe is a black homophobe. We used to be persecuted for the colour of our skin. We had the opportunity to take the right path by tolerating those who are sexually other and missed it. As absurd as it is, it’s almost funny; I almost can’t believe such a thing happened. If you support this bill, you’re no better than that white racist from the past. This too, shall pass. Just as with time and the hard work of some activists Racism’s gone away, one day people will realize Homophobia’s just as irrational.

When people say things like “It’s not natural”, I ask some questions. Would any sane man in a country like Nigeria where there is very little tolerance of gays, choose to be gay?

I had an acquaintance who said if her son was gay, she would abandon him. You would abandon your son? Now she’s a Christian and so I asked why she should throw away her gift like that, because child birth is a gift. She said “because it’s not of God”. Weird, seeing how God gave her that child, or was that the devil at work? “Seun what if you have a son, who turns out to be gay?” I will love him, because he is my son and I will not see him differently.

Chimamanda Adichie wrote a piece on this very subject, also condemning the Anti-Gay law. When I read through the comment section to see the reaction it would have, someone said the law serves as a deterrent. Well, deterrents stop people from doing certain things, things we have some choice over. Since you don’t have a choice concerning your sexuality then it’s hardly a deterrent, rather a lifetime in jail from the minute you’re born.

Human beings being are mammals. There is homosexual behavior among many species of animals. So I’m guessing those animals chose to be gay right? It’s their ‘lifestyle choice’ right? The straight animals tell the gay ones to stop being so Western right?

People really need to think about what they say, use deductive reason. “Oh it’s un-African” or “un-Nigerian”. I will ask though, what makes you African? What makes you Nigerian? Can we please have a list of things we have to do to meet these criteria? Unfortunately that’s going to be especially hard seeing as we are all born different and have been shaped by our different experiences.

Let’s talk about the impact this law has on the country. Due to the world becoming more ‘transparent’ and as Globalization takes a more significant hold, Nigeria is hindering itself. Why? We could potentially lose investors and tourists (Mark Zuckerberg’s threat to withdraw his companies from Uganda, a case in point). Nigeria is a democracy. Democracies exist especially to protect the minority and let people be as free as possible provided their actions do not affect others or disrupt society. And just before someone says something as silly as “Oh! So people should be allowed to have sex with dogs”, no that’s not what I mean. Gay people do not practice bestiality either.

This law is a complete contradiction of the political system that we want as Nigerians. This law is creating more problems than it is solving. This law is uniting Nigerians in a bad way. You would think the Legislature would be more worried about some of the greater issues plaguing the country, but I guess someone saw Brokeback Mountain and decided the ‘Anti-gay’ law was much more important.

I’m not campaigning for gays to have the right to get married; I don’t know where I stand on that. I do know that’s up to the religious bodies that the government recognizes. My campaign hinges on gay people being treated equally, with the respect that would be afforded the reasonable person. What would Jesus do? Would Jesus would give a gay man a hug or would he send him to prison for 10 years?

My writing this was partially borne out of the desire to persuade people to think logically, but most especially because it’s the right thing to do. Years from now our children will look at us and ask questions. I want them to take pride in knowing their father stood for what was right; I treated all humans the same. Black, white, gay, straight, we are all the same.

Share Article

Anti Gay Law

Nigeria

About the author

Editorial Team

Staff Writer

1 Comments

Add your own hot takes

Nwachukwu Joshua

•
11 years ago

Hi, Seun Pinheiro, I must commend you for this nice piece; I was thrilled by its simplicity and style. Well done, but i beg to differ with you on some points.
Before I start I will like to make it clear that I do not hate gays, just the same way I don’t hate polygamists, bigamists and others but I support the law to the extent that it preserves the traditional and original meaning of marriage. The current demand to redefine marriage to include same-sex as well as opposite-sex couples is often motivated by goodwill, equality, tolerance, fairness and happiness, while opposition to this redefinition is often seen to motivated by bad will, the fear or hatred of homosexuals, religious fanaticism, close-mindedness and the list continues. Nevertheless, the rightness or wrongness of same-sex marriage has to be decided on its own merits.
For easy understanding I would like to lay my point in the following subheadings:
Origin of Marriage:
Nigerians are not opposed to homosexuality solely because it is against the tenets of religion. If that was the sole reason, that would really be absurd because, the notion of marriage as a union between a man and woman even precedes Christianity and Islam.
We are against it because it is against natural law. Marriage unlike football, or human law is not a creation of religion or the government, it is a creation of nature which man comes and meets it and he has no right to change it, his duty is to recognise it, like the law of gravity etc. if he changes it, he is just deceiving himself, it’s like someone seeing a circle and then calls it a triangle the fact that he and some of his friends call it a triangle does not change the fact that it is a still a circle.
State and Religion:
You posited that “Nigeria is a democracy. Religion should have no influence on the law” not only is your postulation fallacious it is also utopic. The 1999 constitution of Nigeria which is our grundnorm provides in S.10 Secularism just like in America and other countries. Secularism does not mean atheism and the Nigerian Constitution just like that of America even recognises and acknowledges God, in their laws and practises of court e.g oath taking of the president and even in the court.
Saying that politicians should not make decisions based on their religious faith is even against their fundamental human right which guarantees “freedom of thought, conscience and religion”
If you know a bit about the history of laws, you would know that religion has played a major role in law making, e.g the rules of equity, Abolition of slave trade Act and so many others were influenced greatly by the Christian religion.
The idea of secularity entails that the state shall not adopt any religion as state religion. As such the fact that a government legislation agrees with the tenets of some religion does not ipso facto make that law a religious law. If not crimes like murder, theft, rape which are also sins in many religions would not be crimes.

Un “African” and Un “Nigerian”
I think many activists including Bisi Alimi, always get this wrong, when we say that homosexuality is Un- African and also Un- Nigerian, we are not saying that homosexuality is a creature of the western world and absent in Africa or Nigeria. If that was our position then we are very poor students of history because in the Roman Empire, in Egypt and early civilisations, there existed homosexuals, but they were not given rights such as the right to marry, the right to adopt children etc. An example, one can say Stealing is alien to Nigerian norms, it is not because Nigerians do not steal big time, but because Nigerians respect a norm that says “good name is better than silver and gold”, as such if you steal, you are not respected or honoured.
But it has now become a creation of the western world in the sense that the United States unfortunately under the administration of Barack Obama has now made it their prime international policy to enforce the right of LGBT even to the detriment of others, and it is unjust and unfair.
The role of government:
You, like many activists also have queried the government for enacting this law when the country is plagued with more pressing issues eg Boko Haram. If we continue on this premise, it will not be helpful to society, since we are demanding that our government should be put on hold all other activities till they extinguish Boko Haram. This line of thought seems to forget or ignore the multidimensionality of government and the possibility of government to pursue multiple targets at the same time.
Also for Pastor Martin Niemoller and other activists, where were they when the bill passed the first, second and third hearing?

Reason for the law:
As you would have noticed, the law does not criminalise homosexuality in a general sense but the public display, the reason was well encapsulated in the Wolfenden Committee report and I quote as follows:
“the function of criminal law is to preserve public order and decency to protect the citizens from what is offensive or injurious and to provide sufficient safeguard against exploitation and aggravation of others, particularly those who are vulnerable because they are young, week in body, or mind, inexperienced, or in a state of special, physical, official or economic dependence.
The real racist:
You accused us of being racist, but that’s very far from the truth, persons who are suffering now and more are even those who are for traditional marriages.
Use the USA, for example, we read of many instances were persons have lost their jobs because of anti-gay comments but not vice versa, eg, Duck Dynasty we’ve heard of instances where persons like bakers, hall decorators etc have been compelled, fined or imprisoned for falling to provide their services to gays etc.
The gay movement though a minority movement is bullying the whole world, this movement is restricting our freedom of expression; it is infringing people’s right of conscience and even religion etc.
I must say that as a Christian, our faith does not and I repeat does not teach us to hate or condemn homosexuals, rather it preaches that we love and pray for them. They can also be helped and many have been helped. So anybody who claims to be a Christian and does otherwise is very far from the Christian faith.
Seun, what your children would ask you in the future is, daddy what did you do to fight for the truth, which many considered unpleasant and unaccepted and uncivilised? Your children would want to know if their daddy was a hero or a mere conformist.
I advise and encourage you to be an advocate for the many person whose rights are being infringed upon by the gay movement.