Thinking Aloud; The New Anti-Gay Laws and The Nigerian Government.

I am Unashamedly a Christian. I am Unashamedly a Christian. I am Unashamedly a Christian. By the end of the post, you would understand why I had to state that, thrice. Apart from having a relationship with God, I'm also quite opinionated. Yet, when controversial issues spring forth, I  hardly say anything these days. I mostly observe and see/hear what others have to say. Even though sometimes people say the most stupid things-because I recently decided to let go of every judgmental streak in me and also because I'm trying, albeit hard to be as objective as possible-I still try to reason from their perspectives. I never want to be biased and judge people by my standards because in some situations, my standards can be pretty high. At the same time, I never want to ignore things that are wrong because of a need to be liberal or a need to conform. Morality and religion out of the way, I'm a bit conservative anyway. So, when President Jonathan passed a bill on homosexuality; a bill that states that a homosexual should go to jail for fourteen years, there was an uproar; mixed reactions from different people. I wasn't too interested, frankly. Some people said the most bizarre things about the law but as far as I was concerned it was none of my business...or so I thought.


I sat down yesterday or maybe stood or laid down, what matters is that a question popped in my head yesterday. If, perhaps randomly, our Policemen go on their usual raid on the streets of Lagos and arrest young men and proceed to take these men to the station. Assuming they get to the station and accuse these men going about their normal lives of homosexuality, how on earth will these men prove that they are in fact heterosexuals? Maybe to further add insult to injury, these unfortunate men are wearing pairs of jeans that are tighter than usual. Just like that, these men will join the other innocent people rotting in prisons and spend fourteen years of their lives in prison. If you know Nigerian police officers very well, you will understand that I was not in the least being dramatic about the scenario I just described. All I am saying is that if you have a brother or cousin or son or uncle, you should be worried about that law. Scratch that, if you live in Nigeria, you should be afraid of that law.

The bible explicitly says homosexuality has always been and will always be just as much of a sin as fornication and adultery.  Adultery and fornication, by the way have RUINED lives and WILL continue to ruin lives for decades and centuries to come. Why was a bill not passed against them? You see if Mr. President decides to pass a bill against all three and maybe even lying, stealing, looting government's money and corruption, I'll probably bring down this blog post because well, in that case, I will be the biggest fan of Mr. President. But this whole thing seemed to me like our government is bored. So, anything at all, to get us talking and talking and insulting each other on cyber space as long as we aren't talking about how we haven't had electricity for the past one week. As long as we are not talking about how not a single one of our Universities is top 10 in Africa, talk less of top 50 in the world, the wreckage our education has become. As long as we are not talking about the thousands of girls being trafficked daily and lured into prostitution, PLEASE READ THIS ARTICLE ABOUT THE PREMIUM TIMES JOURNALIST THAT WENT UNDERCOVER AS A PROSTITUTE. Once again, dear Nigerians, we all have been distracted and I'm sorry for us.

I understand our culture detests these things and God knows, I respect our culture. But, I'd rather not see this issue from our culture's perspective. There used to be a time our culture thought having twins was an abomination. This same culture (some parts) thinks it's okay to drink water got from mopping your late husband's corpse. I held my breath even as I typed that. Now, God detests it. Ah, he does. But since when, do we fight God's battle for him? My point is deal with this situation any other way but don't send them to prison! An old classmate sent me a broadcast message;

               "You asked us to wear coat under hot sun, we did! You said we should speak your language,

                 we obediently dump ours like zombi! You asked us to tie a rope around our necks like goats

                 we obeyed like Ozubu! You said our ladies should wear dead people's hair instead of the

                 natural ones God gave them, they obeyed like mumu. You said we should marry just one

                 woman in the midst of plenty damsels, we reluctantly obeyed! You said our decent girls 

                 should wear catapaults instaed of the convetional pants, they obeyed! Now you want our 

                men to sleep with fellow men AND women so that God would visit us like Sodom and

                Gomorrah in the Bible! Oyinbo, we say Tufiakwa!Even if we have been rubbishing our

                culture before, on this, our culture takes priority. If you like keep your aids. As Nigerians, we 

                say NO to gay relationships."

I wanted to reply him but I did not. I can't understand why I felt like the message's underlying message was homosexuality would have been fine if it didn't come from the western world. I wanted to ask him, So if homosexuality wasn't imported, you sef would have been gay abi? But I did not. Quite frankly, I was a bit puzzled too when world leaders were complaining about the anti-gay law. Ah ah, how e take concern these ones now? I know they all say it's about violation of human rights yada yada but I think it's more of you are antagonizing  something we approved of. Right? Anyway, we are an independent country and our leaders should be competent enough to make the right decisions and laws for us. Should being the key word. I'm not sure they actually are.

That being said, in light of this new development, my dear girlfriends, I will no longer use words of endearments like darling, boo, love and so on with you during conversations because even though we love each other, I think we can agree that none of us should go to jail. Non? Dear brothers and cousins and uncles please buy your right sizes of jeans trousers, we are now in dangerous times. Also remember to always have girlfriends at every point in time. Whatever you do, remember that fourteen years in a Nigerian prison is equivalent to a death sentence.

Love,
I