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.
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.
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…?
