If the ALUU 4 victims were gays caught in the act, would the percentage of Nigerians condemning Jungle justice drop drastically?

When I read the story of the 4 students of University of Port Harcourt that were lynched on allegation of theft, I wept for my country one more time. I have not watched the video and I do not ever intend to watch it. It is very difficult getting an online report of the story without graphic images of the victims burnt alive, Nigerian bloggers and news reporters need to understand that such violent graphics should come with a trigger warning! I am already tormented at the thought of a human being burnt alive by a sick mob; I can do without the pictures and violent video.

Following the breaking of this horrible news, many Nigerians expressed shock that such barbaric acts could still so wantonly be carried out in Nigeria and with the tacit cooperation of members of the police force, state security men were said to be present at the scene of the lynching but chose not to intervene. 

Also, there were a few Nigerians who actually tried to justify the murders, they felt if these students actually stole phones and laptops as alleged, they deserved to be lynched, and some even cited their religious books to justify this atrocity.

This ghastly incident also brought to my mind the hideous views many Nigerians hold on homosexuality, and what many Nigerians think should happen to homosexuals.

Many Nigerians threaten Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals and Transsexuals with public stoning. I have lost counts of the many times I have received messages and comments on social networks threatening just that.

Many Nigerians obviously think it is OK to threaten Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Trans with jungle justice and also think it is their civic duty to send threat messages, sometimes graphic violence messages to LGBT Rights advocates. My public advocacy for decriminalization of homosexual acts and the call for recognition of LGBT rights as human rights have indeed exposed me to this primitive side of Nigerians.

I wonder how many people that are indignantly condemning the lynching of the 4 UNIPORT students would also condemn this action if the accusation was not that of robbery but that of sodomy. What if these students were accused of being gay, would it be OK to lynch them?

I ask this question because many Nigerians often very casually mention that gays should be publicly ridiculed, mobbed and stoned to death. Many Nigerians make it a duty to leave threatening messages on social networks where any gay person, lesbian, bisexual or transsexual is featured.

 When I granted a National newspaper an interview where I condemned the anti same sex marriage bill and called for the recognition of LGBT rights as human rights, many Nigerians left comments calling for gay Nigerians to be lynched. Very few Nigerians ever bothered to condemn such comments. 

When Sir Richard Branson on his blog, condemned the anti same sex marriage bill as cruel, many Nigerians posted vitriolic comments on the blog, many went as far as calling for gays to be publicly stoned to death, they gleefully cited the case of Sodom and Gomorrah to justify this atrocity. As Voltaire said “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities”.

Same hate-filled comments were posted under the interview I granted. In fact many Nigerians gossip blogs reposted the interview on their various naija gossips sites with malicious captions encouraging very violent comments. Some bloggers even go as far as publishing pictures unlawfully taken from LGBT Rights advocates’ facebook pages and post these online with malicious comments encouraging jungle justice to be carried out on these activists.

 Why do Nigerians think it is OK to threaten anyone with jungle justice, yet shed crocodile tears when jungle justice was carried out on the Aluu4? Is it that jungle justice is not acceptable when the victims are heterosexuals but acceptable if they are gays? Why the double standard?

Jungle justice is of course barbaric in every sense of the word, no right thinking human being should ever advocate for such an evil action, it is certainly not something we should wish on our worst enemies, yet many Nigerians wish this on gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals even though these people cannot cause harm to anyone with their sexual orientation.

Does anyone deserve to live in fear of Jungle justice?

Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transsexuals face the threat of jungle justice every day in Nigeria; they know that getting to court alive would be a luxury. They could be mobbed to death instantly if ever caught in the act or even on mere suspicion. Would the percentage of Nigerians condemning jungle justice drastically drops if it involved gays and lesbians?

Not too long ago, a video was posted online of three female students who were allegedly ‘Lesbians’. They were forced to perform sexual act on themselves by a group of barbaric guys, they were flogged, tortured, humiliated and raped. I wrote an appeal calling for justice and urged people to stop sharing the video. I was indeed surprised by the number of ‘likes’ on the horrendous, violent rape video, and some of these who clicked like on the video were my facebook friends, needless to say I had them deleted shortly after sending them a short message on exactly why I was deleting them from my friendship list.

This horribly violent video did not receive a wide condemnation, the police never acted on it, the National Human rights commission was informed, various Human rights NGOs in Nigeria were contacted, and none felt it would be productive to demand for justice for the ladies. The fact that the tortured students were allegedly lesbians did not earn them much public sympathy, the allegation of Lesbianism already made them sub-humans in the eyes of Nigerians.

So I ask again, how many Nigerians would really stand up and speak against jungle justice if the Aluu 4 victims were gays caught in the act?

 State sanctioned Jungle Justice?

There have been many documented cases of public bullying and torture of gays and lesbians in Nigeria, yet we never heard a public condemnation of such barbaric threats and acts against LGBTs.

Under Shari’a law which has been adopted by 12 Northern states in Nigeria, Sodomy is a criminal offence which is penalize with death by stoning. Hate crimes are not uncommon in Nigeria as can be seen in the following cases and remarks:

•  In Jigawa State, a Muslim state, in April 2002, a 22 year-old student at the Birnin Kudu College, was beaten to death by fellow students because" they suspected him as gay." 
•  Anietie and Joy, lesbian Christian couple, were attacked with acid by some people through their bedroom window. Joy died as a result of the attack and Anietie was hospitalised. Source (http://www.yawningbread.org/guest_2006/guw-107.htm) 
•   On 12 September 2008, four newspapers published the names, addresses, and photographs of the twelve members of the House of Rainbow, a LGBT-friendly church in Lagos. As a result, some members were threatened, stoned, and beaten. One woman was attacked by 11 men. As of the end of 2011, no action had been taken against the perpetrators.  Source (http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/160138.pdf  , 2010 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Nigeria, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, U.S. Department of State, page 58 

 In the international arena, Nigeria has continued its campaign, openly calling for killing people who engage in homosexual conduct. At the UN Human Rights Council in September 2006, Nigeria ridiculed the notion that executions for offences such as homosexuality and lesbianism are excessive. Its diplomat said: “What may be seen by some as disproportional penalty in such serious offences and odious conduct may be seen by others as appropriate and just punishment.”  

(Source- "Recognizing Human Rights Violations Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity at the Human Rights Council Session 2," ARC International (2006); also available on Human Rights Council Website, www.unhchr.ch, cited in This Alien Legacy, Human Rights Watch Report, December 2008, p.62)

Also, recently at the United Nations, Nigeria was one of the countries that voted in support of removing ‘sexual orientation’ as one of the grounds which extra judicial, summary and arbitrary execution would not be tolerated.  Need I point out that extra Judicial, summary and arbitrary execution include JUNGLE JUSTICE? Well, Nigeria actually voted that jungle justice be mete out to Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals and Transsexuals.

 When Nigerians have so much hate for LGBT persons who have not caused them harm in anyway, how can they even have an iota of human feeling for those who actually harm them? Law enforcement agents are not sympathetic to sexual minority cases, the government seeks to further criminalize homosexuals and the majority of the citizens want to stone gays to death, what a country! 

When leaders of our country, our security agents and the generality of our citizens have such mindsets, how can we begin to talk of a social justice conscience and sanity in our nation?

Nigerians must rid themselves of mental slavery, self righteousness and religious stupidity before they can truly empathize with another human being or other earthlings, without a need to justify their actions with quotes from some imported ‘holy books’.

Selective justice is bad and jungle justice has no place in a civilized, sane society. Of course Nigeria is not yet a civilized, sane society, but this is not a reason for us to flaunt our primitiveness. Let us at least make an effort to rid ourselves of these primitive urges, and try to understand that every life matters.

To maintain sanity, law and order in our society, we must learn to rise above primitive urges, and give everyone a fair chance to be heard in a democratic court of law. Some would say it is easy to say this if one had never been attacked by armed robbers. Well, some of us had experienced armed robbery at gun point, we have had horrible people do despicable things to us and our loved ones, but what makes us above these despicable people is because we have refused to drag ourselves down to their evil level. An eye for an eye is never a good thing; it would leave everyone blind.

A nation is as good as the conscience of its citizens; a nation is also as bad as the conscience of its citizens. On the issue of Rights of Sexual minorities, many Nigerians lack a social conscience and no encompassing social justice can come from such a nation.

We can only fairly fight against that which we totally condemn, we cannot on one hand condemn jungle justice and on the other hand advocate or passively accept that it is OK for gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, or Trans to be mobbed and stoned to death.

Where do you stand on the issue of jungle justice; are you totally against Jungle Justice or is it No to Jungle Justice, but…?