Nigerian Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual And Transgender Activists In London Protest Against Anti -Same Sex Laws

 Nigerian LGBT’s in Diaspora Against Anti Same Sex Laws held a rally outside Nigerian Embassy in London, UK to mark the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.

The rally was held on Thursday May 17th 2012 with the Theme- “We Are Family- Freedom to Love for all Nigerians”.
Speakers shared personal stories and experiences of Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia and a letter was delivered to officials of the Nigerian High Commission.

 A former student activist of the OAU, Ile-Ife, Yemisi Ilesanmi led the protest. She said a position paper on the Anti-Same Sex Marriage bill currently pending before the Nigerian legislatures had already been sent to the Nigerian Legislative organ and the Executive.

PM NEWS LAGOS-Same Sex Marriage: Obama’s Nod Emboldens Nigerian Gays  
 

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COMMENTARY: Senate and Gays By Damola Awoyokun

“If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.”

 That is Deuteronomy 22:28.  The holy Quran’s Surat Al-Mā’idah 5:38 commands: “As for the thief, the male and the female, amputate their hands in recompense for what they committed as a deterrent [punishment] from Allah. And Allah is exalted in Might and Wisdom.” These are some of the injunctions which in their days were normal and fair but today, thousands of years later, by general consensus we find them proceeds from a completely bizarre morality. Through rigorous philosophical critique of natural laws, through scientific findings and codification of human rights and fundamental freedoms, the human society have advanced from the dark ethics of yesteryears into a brighter modern society.  Unfortunately some horrific concepts and ethics of old are still allowed to persist to date.

It used to be a normal practice to kill twins immediately after birth because they are strange; strange because the society refused to be open-minded.  Since it was common for women to have a kid at once, the natural law was narrowly interpreted to mean that giving birth to more than one is an abnormal occurrence hence evil. It took Mary Slessor an arduous campaign of enlightenment to turn this practice around in Nigeria.  Now it is not baby twins that are seen as evil, it is their murder at birth.  For every law of nature there will always be an exception. We are black people, yet we have albinos among us. They are not bad or evil, they are just different. Cat and dogs are meant to be enemies, but we have some that are best of friends.  There are some men that have certain features of women and some women have features that traditionally belong to men. Also, there are the hermaphrodites. They are not evil, they are just different. If we have not heard of homosexuality before, meditation on the wonders of nature and how she breaks her own laws supposed to convince us that men who love men and women who love women would exist somewhere. This is neither bad nor evil. It is just nature asserting her rights to break her own rules and enrich the world with differences.

Homosexuality is not evil. Homosexuality is not a western invention. Homosexuality is not a cultural fad. Homosexuality is not a measure of cultural decadence nor is it the sign of end time. Homosexuality is simply a biological fact. You cannot become gay unless you are born one.  It is on this note that I find the Senate’s ratification of the Same Gender Marriage Prohibition Bill condemnable.  The presidency or the lower House should claim the moral high ground and quash the bizarre bill.  Legislation like this should be responsible to modern scientific findings and rooted in ethical reasoning instead of being founded on wilful ignorance or on discredited Arabic or Semitic injunctions of thousands of years ago.

The Senate that supposed to put the pin back into the grenade by educating Nigerians on the normality of homosexuality is allowing homophobia to regain composure, become more virulent and worse, become legal and fashionable. Sen. Baba-Ahmed Yusuf Datti of Kaduna and Dr. Ishaq Akintola have declared with impunity that gays should be murdered.

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A Culture Of Intolerance, Homosexuality by C. J. Nnamani First off, the National Assembly’s passing of the bill to ban gay marriages is an act of ignorance. If there was any incident of a gay marital union, the nation would’ve been aware. It’s not a topic that could slip pass without generating a lot of noise. The Sun newspaper has that flamboyant sentimental way of reporting, so. Still, our legislators were anxious to save us all from the pain of ever witnessing such evil. They should know that such a law was totally irrelevant. A culture grooms it’s people, and defiant members, which in this case has to do with sexuality, are already paying the price of shame and living in fear. What they really beg of us is to be left in peace. What the legislators have done is to give credibility to the harassment of homosexuals, a minority of nigerian citizens they should take the responsibility of protecting. Isn’t making gay marriages/relations unrecognizable by the state enough? Why go the extra mile of making it a crime? Even a petty pick pocket should be spared the horror of visiting our police stations, more so, our prisons. If they realized all these and went ahead, then it’s an act of wickedness. In their defense, it was in keeping with the culture of the people. They insist it’s our culture. Certainly not the pure form of our culture, because it has assimilated so much, it’s distorted. If it’s an ill, one ill of globalization is that it fastens these assimilations. True, the current culture in Nigeria can’t accommodate same-sex sexual relationships. Given the world’s overpopulation, onewould rationally assume that homosexuality and say, celibacy, was God’s solution, his alternative to productive mating. But alas, only the second can be suggested, because only the second is endorsed by religious institutions. They say God didn’t create Adam and Steve. But God never created, according to the holy books, Adam, Eve, and hermaphrodites. Should we, I don’t know, should we march hermaphrodites to reservation camps? They say the human race will face extinction. Like that would ever happen; like people would begin losing their melanin if albinos are not isolated. Then you hear arguments like some fake it, some weren’t born with it, some were a result of a bad upbringing. Does it matter the path one took to reach holiness? You pretend to be something long enough and it becomes you. The question is at this point in your life are you holy, a thief, a liar, a killer? (continue reading)
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A Culture Of Intolerance, Homosexuality by C. J. Nnamani

First off, the National Assembly’s passing of the bill to ban gay marriages is an act of ignorance. If there was any incident of a gay marital union, the nation would’ve been aware. It’s not a topic that could slip pass without generating a lot of noise. The Sun newspaper has that flamboyant sentimental way of reporting, so. Still, our legislators were anxious to save us all from the pain of ever witnessing such evil. They should know that such a law was totally irrelevant. A culture grooms it’s people, and defiant members, which in this case has to do with sexuality, are already paying the price of shame and living in fear. What they really beg of us is to be left in peace.

What the legislators have done is to give credibility to the harassment of homosexuals, a minority of nigerian citizens they should take the responsibility of protecting. Isn’t making gay marriages/relations unrecognizable by the state enough? Why go the extra mile of making it a crime? Even a petty pick pocket should be spared the horror of visiting our police stations, more so, our prisons. If they realized all these and went ahead, then it’s an act of wickedness.

In their defense, it was in keeping with the culture of the people. They insist it’s our culture. Certainly not the pure form of our culture, because it has assimilated so much, it’s distorted. If it’s an ill, one ill of globalization is that it fastens these assimilations. True, the current culture in Nigeria can’t accommodate same-sex sexual relationships. Given the world’s overpopulation, one
would rationally assume that homosexuality and say, celibacy, was God’s solution, his alternative to productive mating. But alas, only the second can be suggested, because only the second is endorsed by religious institutions. They say God didn’t create Adam and Steve. But God never created, according to the holy books, Adam, Eve, and hermaphrodites. Should we, I don’t know, should we march hermaphrodites to reservation camps?

They say the human race will face extinction. Like that would ever happen; like people would begin losing their melanin if albinos are not isolated. Then you hear arguments like some fake it, some weren’t born with it, some were a result of a bad upbringing. Does it matter the path one took to reach holiness? You pretend to be something long enough and it becomes you. The question is at this point in your life are you holy, a thief, a liar, a killer?

(continue reading)

Nigerians Protest: Gay & Proud

LGBT activists and those alike, convened in New York on Dec. 5th 2011, at the Nigeria Mission House to protest against Nigeria’s recent passing of the Anti Gay bill, which plans to ban homosexuality in the country.

PHOTONEWS: Nigeria’s Anti-Gay Legislation- Protest At The Nigerian Embassy In New York
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PHOTONEWS: Nigeria’s Anti-Gay Legislation- Protest At The Nigerian Embassy In New York

Global Information Network: Africa News Briefs

South Africa, Host Of Climate Confab, Is Africa’s Worst Pollutor

Nov. 29 (GIN) – Delegates from around the world are streaming into Durban, South Africa, for the U.N.’s Conference on Climate Change. Ironically, this is also home of one of the worst polluters on the continent, the Eskom coal-powered national electric company. State-owned Eskom’s coal-fired power stations are responsible for 66 percent of the 6,000 tons of sulphur dioxide pollution spewed into the atmosphere daily.
 
Sulphur dioxide is dangerous to human health and to plants and corrodes buildings yet dirty and destructive coal plants are opening around the continent at a fast pace.
 
Prior to the opening of the Durban conference Tuesday, Tosi Mpanu-Mpanu, chair of the Africa Group of Negotiators for Climate Change, stated Africa’s concerns. “Africa wants an outcome based on science that is fair and honors the promises all countries have made in the U.N. Climate Convention and its Kyoto Protocol.
 
 
Nigeria Joins Uganda To Pass Homophobic Legislation

Nov. 29 (GIN) – Joining a movement fueled by a segment of conservative American evangelicals, the Nigerian Senate approved this week a bill criminalizing gay marriage, gay support groups and same-sex public displays of affection.
 
It was the latest attack on a minority already facing discrimination in Africa’s most populous nation.
 
The Senate increased the penalty for gay marriage from five years’ imprisonment proposed in a draft bill to 14 years. The bill must be passed by Nigeria’s House of Representatives and signed by President Goodluck Jonathan before becoming law.
 
Farmers Prepare “Fight Back” To Foreign Land Grabbers

Nov. 29 (GIN) – An international farmers’ conference in the West African nation of Mali this month drew over 250 participants from thirty different countries to oppose the practice of “land grabbing” by foreign investors.
 
Ibrahima Coulibaly of the national organization of Malian farmers said in the opening speech: “The land belongs to local communities and it has been like that for generations. Now, governments are pushing farmers off their lands. This is not acceptable. It is a denial of historic rights, rights that exist since hundreds of years, while many states exist only since the 1960s.”
 
“Land grabbing is happening everywhere,” said Renee Vellve of GRAIN, a farmers’ support group. “The rights of family farmers, pastoralists, artisanal fishers and indigenous communities, are violated constantly and their territories are being increasingly militarized.”
Nestle Company To Investigate Charges It Uses Child Labor

 
Nov. 29 (GIN) - Nestlé, the world’s largest food company, has announced it will investigate charges of using child labor on the farms that supply it with the cocoa that ends up in millions of chocolate bars.
 
Beginning in January, the Fair Labor Association, hired by Nestle, will send a team of  assessors to Ivory Coast to map the cocoa supply chain. The group has conducted similar investigations in the textile, manufacturing and other industries around the world. But Nestlé is the first food company to open up its supply chain to FLA’s scrutiny.
 
It’s the first major move to combat child labor since the Swiss company and other major chocolate makers signed a U.S.-brokered agreement in September 2001.
More then 60 countries have been targeted by hundreds of private corporations and dozens of governments. This international “land rush” affects as least 30 million acres in Africa alone, according to GRAIN.
 

Nigeria Senate Approves Anti-gay Marriage Bill - AP

ABUJA, Nigeria — Nigeria’s Senate has passed a bill banning gay marriage in Africa’s most populous nation, where gays and lesbians already face abuse and discrimination.

The Senate voted Tuesday to pass the bill. It was not immediately clear if it would then go to Nigeria’s House of Representatives or to President Goodluck Jonathan for his approval.

Under the measure, couples who marry could face up to 14 years in jail, and witnesses or anyone who helps couples marry could be sentenced to 10 years behind bars.

The proposed law also has drawn the interest of European Union countries.

The British government also recently threatened to cut aid to African countries that violate the rights of gays and lesbians.

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Skype call with Yemisi Ilesanmi, activist for gay rights in London

This past Saturday, during our livestream broadcast, correspondent Rudolf Okonkwo for SaharaReporters interviewed UK-based gay rights activist Yemisi Ilesanmi to talk about the misconceptions of LGBTQ lifestyle amongst Africans and within African culture - especially in light of the bill to ban gay marriage in Nigeria.