Brotherhood of the damned!
By Taiwo Kolawole Hassan
In my article of 8th June, 2021 published here in NewsDirect, I began by saying that in her article titled: The Emergent Queer: Homosexuality and Nigerian Fiction in the 21st Century, Lindsey Green-Simms of the American University began with this first salvo, saying;
“In Wole Soyinka’s 1965 novel The Interpreters, the African American professor Joe Golder, perhaps one of the most well known gay characters in African literature, says to the Nigerian journalist Sagoe, “Do you think I know nothing of your Emirs and their little boys? You forget history is my subject. And what about those exclusive coteries in Lagos?” (199). Though the two men are in Nigeria, where Golder is teaching African history, Sagoe claims ignorance: “You seem better informed than I am. But if you don’t mind I’ll persist in my delusion” (199).
What prompts Golder’s history lesson on the existence of homosexuality in Nigeria is Sagoe’s assertion that while America might be full of perversions, Nigeria is a “comparatively healthy society” (199). Golder’s response to Sagoe has been discussed in many of the key studies of African literature and homosexuality such as Chris Dunton’s pioneering “Wheyting Be Dat? The Treatment of Homosexuality in African Literature,” which was published in 1989 and remains one of the most comprehensive essays on the subject; Neville Hoad’s African Intimacies: This content downloaded from 5.71.199.250 on Sat, 05 Jun 2021 06:37:57 UTC All use subject to ht 140 RESEARCH IN AFRICAN LITERATURES VOLUME 47 NUMBER 2 Race, Homosexuality, and Globalization, one of the first book-length engagements with African discourses of homosexuality; and Gaurav Desai’s influential essay “Out in Africa.” On the one hand, these critics agree that Joe Golder is typical of many of the homosexual characters that appear in African literature….”
She went on to point out and I quote;
“Since 2003, at least twenty-five films have been released that feature characters involved in same-sex affairs or relationships. While these films, many of which star A-list Nollywood celebrities, make visible relationships that are most often underground, they do so by casting homosexuality in a negative light and have arguably helped to legitimate laws that criminalize homosexuality. Gay characters are portrayed as murderous and lecherous, often involved in other vices such as prostitution and witchcraft, and they are almost always a direct and clear threat to heterosexual marriages. Nollywood has only three possible endings for these characters: they are either killed off, imprisoned, or become born again Christians who return to heterosexuality and denounce their sins. In this way, gay characters are erased and denied agency and, at the same time, shown to be appropriately punished… “
This kind of erasure of traits of homosexuality, Lesbianism and LGBT tendencies are what is intended to become the norm (in my opinion) when the Nigerian government took a position on this moral matter of the sexuality of its citizens. President Olusegun Obasanjo, first attempted to ban the LGBT people in 2007 but he failed then. There was so much international pressure against his attempt at the time.
However, seven years on, on January 7, 2014, Nigeria’s former President, Goodluck Jonathan, signed the Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Bill (SSMPA) into law. The notional purpose of the SSMPA is to prohibit marriage between persons of the same sex. In reality, its scope is much wider. The law forbids any cohabitation between same-sex sexual partners and bans any “public show of same sex amorous relationship.”
The SSMPA imposes a 10-year prison sentence on anyone who “registers, operates or participates in gay clubs, societies and organization” or “supports” the activities of such organizations. Punishments are severe, ranging from 10 to 14 years in prison. Such provisions build on existing legislation in Nigeria but go much further: while the colonial-era criminal and penal codes outlawed sexual acts between members of the same sex, the SSMPA effectively criminalizes lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
An Executive Director of an Abuja NGO, in October 2015 stated “Basically, because of this law the police treat people in any way that they please. They torture, force people to confess, and when they hear about a gathering of men, they just head over to make arrests. “
Another Executive Director of a Minna, Niger State NGO, in October 2015 also stated; “Vigilante groups have added homosexuality to their “terms of reference.” These groups are organized by community members, given authorization by the community to maintain some sort of order and “security.”
In my famous article of 8th of June, I wrote that the present outcome is that so many Nigerian men and women have fled from Nigeria since then to the United Kingdom, Ireland, United States of America and other places seeking refuge and compassion where they believe it is available to them. Many of such people whose claim have been disbelieved or rejected by immigration authorities abroad are forced to flee underground in those refuge countries, living in destitution and poverty yet able to live their depraved sexual lives as they want to. Failed asylum seekers are afraid of deportation but they are not afraid of being persecuted or prosecuted for their sexuality.
Some have committed suicide over this matter, preferring to die rather than be deported back to Nigeria. Some have fallen in love with other gay people they met abroad and are facing whatever life brings together. It is noteworthy that the intended ‘erasure’ did not happen and is not happening as far as my research and personal interviews show even in Nigeria today. Anti LGBT laws only drove it underground.
On this occasion, I wish to highlight the case of one Charles Oluwatobiloba Rotimi a Christian man and Ibrahim Garuba, a Muslim man who are Nigerian bisexuals who due to the frivolity of their sexual freedom have often engaged in anal sex and oral sex, which led to them contracting Hepatitis B some nine years ago.
They are from Nigeria but met in London as asylum seekers frequenting gay clubs and LGBT hang out dens. They became lovers, though Charles was married at the time to a very beautiful white woman of British origin. Her female alure & sexual energy was not enough for Charles who is a very naughty boy and is said to have been having sex with other boys and men since his boarding school days in Nigeria, back in the day – Shame!
Hepatitis B is a vaccine-preventable liver infection caused by the hepatitis B virus (HBV). Hepatitis B is spread when blood, semen, or other body fluids from a person infected with the virus enters the body of someone who is not infected. This can happen through sexual contact; sharing needles, syringes, or other drug-injection equipment; or from mother to baby at birth. Not all people newly infected with HBV have symptoms, but for those that do, symptoms can include fatigue, poor appetite, stomach pain, nausea, and jaundice.
For many people, hepatitis B is a short-term illness. For others, it can become a long-term, chronic infection that can lead to serious, even life-threatening health issues like cirrhosis or liver cancer.
This infection is spread much like HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. It is found in the blood, semen, and vaginal secretions of an infected person. Hepatitis B is easier to catch than HIV because it can be 100 times more concentrated in an infected person’s blood.
I interviewed Ibrahim Garuba for this article. He is a broken and bitter man, who believes he got the Hep B from Charles who he claimed had it but did not disclose it to anyone.
We are unable to interview Charles about this claim but he is free to challenge this fact, if he wants to. However, Ibrahim claimed to have developed liver problems and suffering from all sorts of medical complications as a result of his Hep B infection. Apart from that, he is afraid for his life being a gay Muslim man from Northern Nigeria. He feels unworthy, abandoned, and stated that suicide is always on his mind. No wonder, our society frowns on this evil and rightfully so. In Islam this is forbidden. Said to be worthy of death.
Not only are these ‘gay/bisexual’ men as they like to call themselves morally corrupt, but it is clear to me that many of these men and women may rightfully never, ever see their homeland (Nigeria) ever again. They are lost forever and if they should return to us here, there can be no warm welcome party waiting, no love, no compassion, and no freedom for them to come and corrupt our society further.
Surely, arrest by the Nigerian Police is guaranteed by law. If we are careless and they manage to sneak back here under radar, then they will be spreading their immorality, germs & viruses such as Hepatitis B, HIV and other diseases all over our nation, killing innocent people silently. These men and women are shaming us. We should spread their names and photos boldly all over the land and expose them in order to save our innocent children from sexually engaging with them.
I said it before and I boldly say it again now as I have done so many times, that the truth is; there is not enough cleansing soap or sanitizers in Nigeria to wash away the stigma and shame that homosexuals, bisexuals, lesbians or gay people bring on us, and the terrible harm their lifestyle causes the innocent in our midst. They are a disgrace to our society. We must prosecute them and incarcerate them.
Again, I appeal to the law makers of Nigeria today. I call on the President, Senators and many responsible others, not to invent any magic soap (political manipulation) that can reverse the signature of former President Jonathan Goodluck from the Nigerian statute books, banning homosexuals, bi-sexual and deviant others from engaging in this evil, encourage or aid & abet such immorality within our land.
The stroke of pen swung on 07 January 2014 in black ink has sealed and defined the destiny of the Nigerian LGBT people and so it must remain in indelible ink forever.
These perverts must be listed and paraded in the immorality hall of shame. It is more than accurate to say that they are; ‘The brotherhood of the damned!
