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Nigeria, like many former British colonies, has laws dating back to the Victorian era that make sodomy punishable by up to 14 years in prison. While these old laws have been applied only occasionally, they contribute to a modern climate of deep intolerance towards homosexuals that denies the reality of past practice in Africa’s most populous country. In modern Nigeria religious fundamentalism grips both the Christian south and Muslim north, but formerly in parts of the north prominent men kept harems of what were termed in Hausa “dan daudu”, meaning “men who are wives of men”, to demonstrate that they were truly rich. Such old practices fly in the face of the popular myth that homosexuality was unknown in Nigeria until it was introduced by the Arabs, who brought Islam, and the British colonialists who were followed by Christian missionaries. The Nigerian decision follows a ruling last month by South Africa’s Constitutional Court that same-sex marriages will be allowed from December this year. The Parliament had declined to implement constitutional clauses permitting same-sex marriages, but the twelve green-robed Constitutional Court judges ruled that the Constitution is “supreme”, not Parliament. However, e lsewhere on the continent attitudes mirror those of Nigeria rather than those of the “liberals” at Africa’s southern tip. In Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe frequently attacks homosexuals and lesbians as “worse than dogs and pigs”. Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has outlawed homosexual sex, declaring it to be “against the order of nature”. Nigeria’s Justice Minister Bayo Ojo, introducing the draft law banning gay marriage, said it was vital to “avoid such practices spreading to the country from the West”. He continued: “Basically it is un-African to have a [sexual] relationship with the same sex. If you look at the holy books, it is prohibited.” The legislation is supported by Archbishop Peter Akinola, the head of Nigeria’s Anglican Church, with 17.5 million members. He said: “The Western world is embroiled in a new religion which we cannot associate ourselves with.” The law will also ban movements for promoting gay rights, such the Daughters of Jezebel, a lesbian organisation whose leader Anita Ekhirame argues that “male-to-male erotic relationships reduce the burden on girls” and that the new draft law is intolerant because in Nigeria “nobody is innocent enough to cast the first stone”. In 12 states in the north that began implementing strict Islamic Shari’ah law in 2000, gay sex is punishable by stoning to death – though this penalty has yet to be applied. But in November last year, six girls in the Niger Delta, aged 12 to 17, were detained by a vigilante group and given 90 cane strokes each for having sex with each other. In 1994, four lesbians were raped at gunpoint by an unknown number of men, a common extra-legal punishment in Africa for gay women. A few days earlier, one of the victims had published an article on lesbians in Nigeria. In 2002, an openly gay university student, 21-year-old Innua Yakubu, was clubbed to death by 16 of his fellow students . Recently a mob burned down a Lagos beach bar frequented by gays. One
immediate casualty of the new law will be the annual Gay Miss Nigeria
pageant. The last Miss Nigeria, a gay man known only as Wale, said: “ I
would like the whole world to know that in spite of our stiff laws, the
lesbian and gay community in Nigeria has dignity and pride.” |
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22 Jan 2006