In a country where waking up to the news of the wholesale massacre of communities, waking up to the news of yet another murder in cold blood, in a suburb of a city as big as Lagos, may feel like yet another day. A milder one even. Unless you are a queer culture writer following a trail of blood from Port Harcourt to Abuja, to Lagos and the sleepy town of Enugu.
When you have a picture of an established world-class event planner, found dead in his Port Harcourt home with signs of a scuffle. A popular and well-loved chef in Abuja, also found dead in a pool of his own blood at his residence. The recovered body of a man in his 20s in Enugu, with a remorseless confession video of his killers making the rounds of the internet. And a grisly video of what remains of Dave, the most recent in a series of targeted deaths of homosexual Nigerians (closeted or otherwise,) what you have is a case of serial homicide of a small human group.
A massacre, if you will.
Nigerian homosexual males and females as well as gender diverse people are at a disturbingly elevated risk of homicide at the hands of many acting groups – from state to non-state actors, and it calls for more than alarm at this point.
State facilitated murders
The violations of LGBTQ+ Nigerians is a daily occurrence, the bulk of which goes undocumented. The few that do get sincerely documented, thanks to tireless work by Non-Governmental human rights organisations and individuals across the country, run in the hundreds year on year. You can find some from the archives of The Initiative for Equal Rights.
Each violation stems from a culture that makes light of talking about violence towards LTBTQ+ Nigerians.
A seemingly innocuous prayer like “God forbid my child becomes gay,” by a Christian or Muslim Nigerian who is not LGBTQ+ (or is one and hates in themself what they have been brought up to see as evil), solidifies into rejection by parents who discover their child is gay/lesbian/bisexual/trans etc.
“I will beat the gay out of him/her,” births situations where family will physically assault their child/ward discovered or suspected to be gay to near death, and in some unfortunate cases to death, in the guise of correcting something that is no easier to correct than a genetic skin disorder. This also gives people prone to evil the nod to take the law into their hands and mete out punishment on LGBTQ+ people for simply existing without constant cowering in fear.
What seems like an extreme comment like, “I will kill my child if he turns to that gay nonsense,” is more commonplace on the tongues of moralizing Nigerians than we care to admit.
We want to make ourselves believe that a God-fearing nation like Nigeria is above casually discussing the murder of people whose ‘lifestyle’ we are strongly against based on our religious belief, but in our everyday musings and discussions, we talk about the lives of LGBTQ+ Nigerians like they don’t matter.
And we have the Nigerian state to thank for drawing this line and legitimizing this continuing assault on the lives of LGBTQ+ Nigerians.
The moment the Nigerian state allowed itself to be goaded by fanatical religious groups into enacting a law that criminalizes the lives of LGBTQ+ Nigerians was when the first call to waylay the lives of this group of Nigerians was made.
The SSMPA, for all its useless injustice, achieved one monumental feat in wickedness that may be hard to surpass, the legitimization of violence against people who are LGBTQ+ or even merely perceived to be LGBTQ+.
With the swipe of a pen Nigeria’s Government - from the era of the signee president Goodluck Ebele Jonathan till this law is repealed - has co-signed an understanding to get a share in every violation and death of the LGBTQ+, whether these deaths happen through state or non-state actors.
Wherever you stand
Here is what many non-LGBTQ+ Nigerians hear when they are called to join in demanding for the rights of gay Nigerians to co-exist in harmony in their country of birth, their fatherland: “Give us approval to commit sodomy.”
The call can be as innocuous as, “Queer lives matter,” or as pleading as, “Stop killing gay Nigerians.” It doesn’t matter.
The fears it stirs in the minds of these otherwise rational (however mildly) Nigerians are the same whether they are Muslim or Christian.
- Sodomy is a grave sin that brought death to a civilization (as recorded in the story of Lot in both the Qur’an and the Bible.)
- We have a share in the ‘sin’ if we legalise LGBTQ+ love.
- We will all become gay in no time if this happens.
Not one of these fears makes sense if you sit with them.
For Muslims and Christians both, the gravest sin remains to worship other deities apart from Allah/Yahweh.
The very existence of Christians in a country with more Muslims than Christians (or the other way around depending on the statistics you use,) should not be a reality by the logic of the first fear. YHWH could as well have exterminated the devotees of Allah (SWT) or the other way around. But even the divine is showing us by our continues co-existence - however troubled - that we can all share in this world while we await reunion with God to go heavenward or straight to hell.
If you get a commission for every sin that happens around you, even though you are not the one committing said sin, you should be having a very needful conversation with yourself and the God you worship. The devil comes in many disguises.
Not only is it humanly impossible for all of us to be LGBTQ+, but if you are really terrified that decriminalization of LGBTQ+ love will make you gay/lesbian, then maybe you are gay/lesbian and working overtime to suppress yourself. Nobody should have to carry your cross of self-loathing. Rest.
Wherever you stand though, whether you are a moralizing Muslim/Christian or using tradition and culture as the basis for your bigotry, nothing excuses cosigning murder.
Murder still remains a grave sin in both Islam and Christianity, and none of these religions makes an exception for the murder of homosexuals in these modern times.
Allah and Yahweh are capable enough of meting out the punishment they deem fit. You only have the responsibility of being a decent human being to all of God’s children.
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