It Is Severely Illegal and Deadly to be a Gay Person in Nigeria
There are laws and legislations that make it dangerously illegal to be a person who identifies themselves as LGBT in Africa.
Anti-LGBT and hateful homophobic legislation in Africa is not a new trend in the making however.
Homosexuality has been illegal in one way or another on most of the African continent at least since the advent of foreign colonialism.
Homosexuality in Africa has never been accepted. Depending on the African country in question however, at tragic best, a blind eye was turned or it was tolerated to bearable social degrees.
A newly inflamed and political charged anti-LGBT hysteria has taken over the African zeitgeist in recent years. Uganda recently passed strict anti-LGBT laws that can imprison anyone who identifies as gay.
Currently, nine African countries have enacted strict laws and legislation that criminalizes anyone who identifies as LGBT.
As of January 2016, Nigeria was the latest country to enact such hateful and homophobic legislation.
The newly enacted and aggressively homophobic laws have created a near dystopic atmosphere in the country where anyone suspected of being LGBT are harangued, harassed, forced into unemployment and homelessness. Neighbors are informing on or settling scores with other neighbors with accusations. Gay Nigerians can be arbitrarily hunted, beaten, tortured or killed.
For many Nigerians in this newly inflamed Anti-LGBT era, the worst form of living death before death is the loathing-enabled homophobic ostracizing.
LGBT identifying Nigerians are literally chased out of their homes, their jobs, their personal lives and their communities with no help, options, means or future.
If you are suspected or accused of being gay in Nigeria, your home will be vandalized and scrawled upon with homophobic slurs. You won’t want to return for fear of physical harm. Or a co-worker or stranger can accuse you at work and you will be instantly out of a job.
A Nigerian who walks in a different way, speaks in a different manner or who values expressing themselves in an individual way, could find themselves being hunted or chased out of town,
Making matters even worse is that the Nigerian homophobic laws do not specifically describe what being, “gay” is. The law does not specifically entail who and who cannot be deemed, “gay.” Gay Nigerians can be imprisoned for about 10 years just for being gay. Allies and supporters of gay Nigerians can be imprisoned for up to 14 years.
Gay people who try to get married in Nigeria can be imprisoned for a decade more. Such laws designed to ban gay marriage in Nigeria is very nonsensical since it is patently impossible for gay people to married in Nigeria since it is very illegal to be gay in Nigeria.
Even if you work for an LGBT-friendly organization or are a doctor and help a gay person in Nigeria you could be imprisoned.
There is some thought that the whole point of making the rules of the anti-LGBT law so nebulous and undefined is to purposefully create such social chaos.
These new laws make it illegal as a doctor or social outreach worker to help a gay person because being gay is illegal. A Nigerian doctor or LGBT activist is supposed to inform police if someone reveals themselves as being gay.
Nigeria has some of the highest rates of citizens infected with HIV in the world. The newly enacted anti-gay legislation means that less people will have access to AID/HIV medication and care. And because doctors and LGBT advocates and allies risk unemployment, imprisonment and death by helping LGBT people, there will be less help available to people.
In the near future, the rates of infection and transmission of AID/HIV could rise dramatically in a country where those rates are already too high.
It is believed by some that the recent waves of renewed anti-gay hysteria and laws in Nigeria and the greater African continent were enabled, spurred and zealously inspired by anti-gay politicians and religious leaders. They, along with many other foreign powers, still maintain a strong neo-colonialist influence on the continent.
That reasoning is pure cop-out.
Anti-LGBT sentiments and virulent homophobia bordering on genocide against LGBT people is nothing new. Blaming the United States or any other country for the anti-LGBT hysteria misses the point.
Until the governments of Nigeria and Uganda and the other African countries rescind their anti-LGBT laws, then LGBT Africans will continue to be hunted, tortured and killed for being themselves.
