LEAD

On the Rights of Depraved People

By ANIEBO NWAMU

Same-sex marriage will, effective this Friday, be legalised in Taiwan, the first Asian nation to do so. President Tsai Ing-wen will assent to the bill passed by the country’s parliament last Friday. The news has delighted gay rights activists in Asia and other parts of the world.

My reaction was to post on Facebook: “Gays and lesbians are lower than beasts. Shame, expose and isolate anyone who admits they’re one.” Comments are still pouring below the post. I published another on my wall: “Aliens are already here. They are LGBT and ‘geniuses’ adored by the whites.”

From the discussions on social media, you could identify gay activists who are Nigerians, though many of them live in Europe and America. Someone said I was gay, too, because “scientific studies” showed that homosexuals are the ones who speak against their kind most. I asked him to send me his unmarried sister to find out my sexual orientation!

The world, it seems, is coming to an end. More nations in Asia are expected to follow in Taiwan’s footsteps: countries like China, Vietnam and Singapore do not yet have strict laws against homosexuality, and their laws are becoming more tolerant to the activities of LGBT people.

Lest I forget, “LGBT” stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. A lesbian is a woman who is sexually and emotionally attracted to fellow women. A gay is a man similarly attracted to fellow men. A bisexual person is attracted to both sexes. Transgender is used to describe people who change their sex – from male to female or from female to male – because they feel differently from their birth sex internally.

Europe and America harbour the largest numbers of these strange people. As of today, more than 25 countries, all but one (South Africa) in Europe and America, have enacted laws allowing gays and lesbians to marry. They include the United States, Canada, Germany, Spain, France, England & Wales, Scotland, Belgium, Norway, The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Argentina, Portugal, Iceland, New Zealand, Uruguay, Brazil, Colombia, Luxembourg, Finland, Ireland, Greenland, Malta, Australia and Austria. Mexico has limited jurisdictions that allow same-sex couples to marry. 

When I first wrote about these depraved beings, I admitted I was still naïve in matters of sexuality. Until the beginning of this century, I didn’t really believe that gays existed in real life. I thought it was one of those fairy tales children were told. And I hardly read stories about them in foreign media; once I saw photographs or headlines announcing a marriage between people of the same sex I would flip past the page, or turn away if it’s television. Nothing could be more obscene.

 A friend made me grow up when he referred me to verses in the Bible, and I soon learned that the evil practice had existed from prehistoric times. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of homosexuals. My friend said something else when we were living in Lagos in the 1990s. He said he suspected another friend was gay because he lacked interest in women. Luckily for that friend of ours, he didn’t see him making advances to fellow men.

My interest in the subject developed with the demand for gay rights in Nigeria also. Having not met anyone who confessed he/she was gay or lesbian, I sought to read a first-hand account of a gay Nigerian. I’ve not succeeded up until now. I see them only on foreign TV channels. Why do they hide if they think it’s right to be gay or lesbian?

Those who are less naïve than me say that 10–15% of Nigerians is gay. In other words, 20-30 million Nigerians are not real human beings! I hear there are clubs in Lagos and Abuja that are exclusive for gays. I have no reason to believe what I hear, but I have no reason not to believe it either.

But why do we refer to America and Europe as “developed” and to Africa as “undeveloped”? I think development shouldn’t be limited to just infrastructure or advancements in technology. What about social or spiritual development? What does it mean for people to be civilised?

 When President Jonathan signed the anti-gay law in 2013, there were uproars and threats from the West. They said they would impose sanctions on the nation. And, indeed, it is suspected that Obama’s America ensured that Jonathan lost the 2015 election because of that legislation he refused to reverse.

I have a piece of advice for our “civilised” friends abroad and the gays among us:  They need not impose sanctions on the country because everybody, gays and non-gays, will suffer. To help the “persecuted” ones who are being denied their rights in Nigeria, they should encourage them to float a political party and seek power. Once one of them is elected president of Nigeria, he would easily reverse the law on same-sex marriage.

They are numerous enough to support a political party. And an opportunity beckons: with the two major political parties now wobbling and confused, a strong third party would have ample chance to win a presidential election. Gays should therefore organise themselves. I don’t know whether they have an association already; one like the “Association of Gay Nigerians” (AGN) could be transformed to “Gay Nigerians’ Party (GNP)”.

Rather than pillory Nigeria, the West should appreciate our benevolence. In the early days of the debate on gay rights, some were of the view that all gays should be executed. The question being asked was whether they were human beings as to deserve human rights. Reason has prevailed, however.

The gays say they were created by God in his own image. Maybe God created them; so let them live. But anyone caught having sex with, or getting married to, a member of the same sex in Nigeria should be prepared to spend 14 years in jail. If they can’t divorce their sexual orientation, they should remain celibate for life.

The debate continues. Do gays deserve all the human rights that normal people enjoy? I don’t think they do: in fact, granting them animal rights would be an honour, for they are lower than animals. At least, animals of the same sex do not mate. I don’t see any civilisation in a man who thrusts his male organ into the anus of another man. Marriage as we know it is between a man and a woman.

If they say they’re human beings and therefore deserve human rights, well, I would wish to join other activists in a crusade for the abolishment of the killing of innocent animals. Let’s grow above savagery then.  No more eating of meat or fish – the shedding of any blood should become a crime. Fishes, chickens, goats, cows and other animals have the right to life. Why do we kill them for food? I wonder why the United Nations forgot to include their right to live in the Universal Declaration of Rights.

All other rights activists should go to work before LGBT rights activists start nursing the declaration of other rights. If they get their way, incest and rape might disappear from the English dictionary: it would be all right for a man to sleep with or remarry his mother. An unmarried woman would be justified to sleep with or marry her father. [There are many reported cases in Nigeria these days.] And how about the right to satisfy a sexual urge? Everyone would be free to enjoy his/her rights and nobody should question the sexual orientation of another: siblings would be free to have sex. Abomination Inc.!

Unless this madness called Western “civilisation” is cured, the world may someday witness marriages between a man and a horse, between a woman and a he-goat, and between a dog and a water mermaid. Yes, there may be no limits to human rights, animal rights and LGBT rights.

Connect with Aniebo:+234-8054100220 (SMS/WhatsApp only)

Most Popular

To Top