“He is supposed to be killed.”
- Nuhu
Idris Mohammed, Sharia Court Judge in Bauchi who sentenced a man to 20 lashes
for being a homosexual. (Source: “Wielding Whip and a Hard New Law, Nigeria
Tries to ‘Sanitize’ Itself of Gays”, New York Times, February 8, 2014.)
Kill them. This
sentiment has been expressed about homosexuals in Nigeria, both in the streets
and in the media, especially since the Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act came
into operation on January 7, 2014. In a rare moment of country-wide support,
the Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan received praise from Christian and
Muslim groups and well as from members of the legal profession and opposition
political parties. Most persons hailed the new piece of legislation as being in
line with Nigerian religious and cultural values and chided the West for what
some called hypocrisy and double standards. In fact, some of the strongest
proponents of the legislation to criminalize gay activities and behavior and
the support of same with long prison terms, come from the opposition. Abike
Dabiri-Erewa for example, a journalist and federal legislator from Lagos State
who is described on her Wikipedia page as having “warmed her way into the
hearts of many with her gallantry efforts of using television as an effective
tool to draw attention to the millions of Nigerians suffering from the pains of
poverty and injustice.” (Dabiri-Erewa has also sponsored a bill for the
elimination for violence against women. Her website describes the proposed
legislation thus: “The bill also seeks compensation for victims of rape. It
also deals with domestic violence, political violence, harmful traditional
practices, and protection of widows among others”). When the anti-gay bill came
up for debate on the floor of the House of Representatives, Dabiri-Erewa said that
the idea of the solemnization of same sex marriage has “no place in Nigerian
culture” and is “repulsive”.
Just what is this piece of
legislation that seems to be at the centre of both controversy and
contradiction? The Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act, one of the scantiest
pieces of legislation in the Laws of the Federation of Nigeria (7 sections and
less than 600 words), is a remarkable law in many ways. For the first time,
actions outside the act of homosexuality itself (albeit corollaries to it) are
being punished. For example, the law punishes acts such as the direct or
indirect “public show of same sex amorous relationship”, a nebulous term not
defined in the legislation, as well as the “registration of gay clubs,
societies and organizations, their sustenance, processions and meetings”.
Further widening the scope of persons capable of being punished, the law
prescribes a 10 year jail term for persons who as much as witnesses any of the
offences, whether the solemnization of a gay marriage, the registration of a
gay club or a meeting of a gay society.
Indeed, it is safe to say that a
majority of Nigerians, sold to the idea of the legislation primarily by its
title (which purports to be mainly about prohibiting gay marriage in Nigeria),
are in support of the law. Nigeria, a country deeply divided along crisscrossed
ethnic and religious lines, is a country fanatical about religion and the
profession of religion. Most persons, whether practitioners of religion or not,
claim some affiliation to one of the two major religions, Christianity or
Islam, whether at social events, in the workplace or even for the purpose of
filling political quotas. Samira Askia*, for example, who in an uncommon act of
bravery, revealed her gay sexuality in an article online, identifies as “gay,
Muslim…and Nigeria[n]”.
Many persons applauding the new
anti-gay legislation cite the preservation of their culture and religion as
strong reasons for their support of this clampdown on gays and those
sympathetic to them. The head of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, Rev.
Felix Omobude, pronounced in a statement hailing the passage of the anti-gay
law that same sex unions are “contrary to Nigeria’s culture” adding, “if you
even remove Christianity and Islam, and to the very tradition of the people, we
abhor same sex marriage.” In a separate reaction, the head of one of the
branches of the Nigerian Bar Association, Nigeria’s umbrella body for lawyers,
said “[Nigerian] culture supports sexual purity and natural means of
conception.”
It seems however that most of these references to culture and religion
force a narrow reading of what Nigerian culture is and has been, at least
outside Christianity and Islam. In at least one example from Northern Nigeria,
there are rich historical and even contemporary sources that suggest this
narrow reading of Nigerian culture may be excluding a large part of the history
of pre-Islamic culture and tradition. In a study dealing with the role of ‘yan
daudu, ‘transgendering men’ in Hausa society and more precisely in bori cult-
an old spirit possession cult where the practice of homosexuality is rife-
scholar Maarit Sinikangas makes several references to respected sources in
explaining how the bori religion operated (and still operates) in parts of
Northern Nigeria. Drawing reference from Fremont E. Besmer’s “Horses, Musicians & Gods: The
Hausa Cult of Possession-Trance” (1983), Sinikangas writes in his
2004 thesis “Yan Daudu -A Study of Transgendering Men in Hausaland West
Africa”:
Bori is fundamentally a communication
between this world and the other world. It is a set of beliefs in supernatural
spirits that can communicate with the people in terms of good or evil will. The
spirits, always being present in people's lives, can cause several misfortunes
and make the people ill, but they have also the power to cure and bring luck.
He also points out that even in contemporary times, “some Muslims take
part [in] bori ceremonies or seek medical help from bori practitioners.”
Many ‘yan daudu participate in
bori performances and dance like women, donating
money to cult-adepts, “especially when the spirit Dan Galadima appears”.
J.H. Greenberg, in “The influence of Islam
on a Sudanese Religion” suggests that the origin of the term ‘dan daudu is from Dan Galadima, a son of Galadima in the spirit
pantheon, Dan Galadima being a
loose living, handsome man who is popular among women. Umar H. D. Danfulani in “Factors
Contributing To The Survival Of The Bori Cult In Northern Nigeria” alludes to
the fact that dancing, sex orgies and daudu homosexuality” are often associated
with bori dances even though he argues that “daudu homosexual relationships
found in some sections of Hausa society is not a particular characteristic of
the bori cult.”
There has been the argument that ‘yan
daudu are not homosexuals, in the strict sense of the word but
merely transsexuals or transvestites. Sinikangas argues that while partaking in
same-sex actions is neither necessary nor a sufficient criteria for the status
of ‘dan daudu, their status being defined through their work and their most
visible feature- gender crossing-, many of the ‘yan daudu do have sexual relations with other men. This
argument is reinforced in Rudolph
Gaudio’s much quoted scholarly
article, “Male Lesbians and
Other Queer Notions in Hausa”. Gaudio, a scholar and linguistic anthropologist
who himself is a gay man and has spent decades living in, visiting and researching in Northern Nigeria, asserts
that although “‘dan daudu” is an occupational categorization, most ‘yan daudu
are in fact homosexual. Explaining the minor difference between the homosexual
‘dan daudu and the Western ‘gay’ sexual identity, he explains:
Despite the lack of significant contacts between
Hausa and North American gay communities, certain similarities in the
discourses of both groups are sufficient to justify my use here of ‘gay’ and
related terms to refer the Hausa men who have sex with men. If ‘gay’ is seen to
refer only to the overt, politicized gay communities that have emerged in the
West in the past one hundred years, it surely does not apply to the Hausa I met
in Nigeria, most of whom have little if any knowledge of Western gay life. If,
however, ‘gay’ is understood to refer to men who are conscious of themselves as
men who have sex with men, and who consider themselves to be socially (if not
temperamentally) distinct from men who do not have this kind of sex, then these
Hausa men are undoubtedly gay, and it is in this sense that I use it. This is
not to say that Hausa men understand sexuality as do North American gay men.
For example, Hausa people generally refer to homosexuality as an act rather
than a psychological drive or predisposition, and homosexual men are more often
described as men who do homosexuality than as men who want other men sexually.
The most common in-group term for men who have sex with men is masu harka,
‘those who do the business’, often abbreviated to masu yi, ‘those who do
[it]’. Moreover, homosexuality is not seen to be incompatible with
heterosexuality, marriage or parenthood, which constitute strong normative
values in Hausa Muslim society.
There is ample scholarship on
bori, ‘yan daudu and homosexuality as an undeniable sub culture in (Nigerian)
Hausa society as well as on several other non-traditional gender and sexuality
expressions across cultures in Nigeria and Africa. The bori, straddling both culture and religion, is one glaring response to
the claim that homosexuality is alien to Nigerian culture.
Much of the modern homophobia in
Nigeria, and indeed many parts of Africa, seem to be connected to the incursion
of monotheistic religions into the continent and the supplanting of existing
cultures and polytheistic religions which accommodated a plurality of belief
systems. More recently there have been well documented reports of American
evangelists who have sponsored and lobbied for gay crackdowns in Africa. Scott
Lively, a controversial Massachusetts based anti-LGBT evangelist, is well known
for his role in Uganda, where as a result of his aggressive advocacy and
representation to the Ugandan parliament, the Anti-Homosexuality bill was
proposed. Lively has been known for asserting, in ‘The Pink Swastika:
Homosexuality in the Nazi Party’, that “homosexuals [are] the true inventors of
Nazism and the guiding force behind many Nazi atrocities.” This in spite of
several sources recording the imprisonment, torture and killing of homosexuals
in Nazi Germany. He further links homosexuality to murder by arguing that eight
of the top ten US serial killers were homosexuals. While some commentators have
asserted that American right wing evangelists have reached countries like
Nigeria to lobby for harsh anti-gay legislation, it is not clear if anti-gay
campaigners like Scott Lively directly influenced the passage of the Nigerian
anti-gay law.
In Northern Nigeria, the Sharia
Penal Code, re-introduced in a stricter version in 1999 starting with the
Zamfara State Government and spreading to as many as 12 Northern states,
prescribes the death penalty for homosexuality. Many of the recently arrested
suspected homosexuals in these Northern states, (notably Bauchi) have been
charged under the Sharia penal code as seen in the outset of this article.
In a country where direct
violence is often the preferred method of solving issues from land disputes to
religious slights, mobs have become emboldened to carry out targeted acts of
violence against persons perceived to be gay. In Rivers State sometime in late
January, barely three weeks after the anti-gay law was passed, a viral video
emerged showing two alleged male homosexuals being molested by a mob and forced
to have sex with each other. On February
12, coordinated attacks on the homes of several activists and others perceived
to be gay were carried out by a mob in a suburb of Abuja in the Federal Capital
Territory. Nearly 14 persons had their property stolen or destroyed and were
rendered homeless. The mob warned that if they returned to their homes they
would be killed. Rumours of many more attacks in other parts of the country
exist.
While it may take a whole new
conversation to understand the root of this boldness of violent anti-gay rhetoric
and physical attacks, one thing is certain: many persons do not relate with
homosexuality as a human issue. They simply refuse to believe that there are
‘normal’ people who have a sexual orientation that does not fit that of the
majority. Lydia Polgreen, the Deputy International Editor of the New York
Times, wrote on April 12, 2012 on her Twitter account: “I interviewed
arch-conservative Nigerian Anglican Bishop, Peter Akinola, who told me he had never met a gay person.”
As a result of decades of living
in the closet as well as the complex notions of sexuality which do not always
fit foreign labels like ‘gay’ or ‘straight’, many persons whose sexuality
involves having sex with persons of the same or similar gender are forced to
fit into culturally assigned roles for males and females. Thus people -women
more so- are pressured into marrying and having children and fitting the role
of the gender they were assigned at birth. Routinely, homosexual men and women
get married and bear children while maintaining closeted same sex
relationships. Hence, gay persons have had no visibility in Nigeria, making it
easy for people to conclude that homosexuality is a Western concept and alien
to our culture. Even ‘yan daudu, while sometimes referring to themselves with
feminine pronouns in Hausa, hold to the gender categories that label them men
and stick to those roles- for example they follow the strict Islamic rules
which prevent men from entering houses which seclude women.
Samira Askia* mentioned earlier,
explains why visibility matters in the discourse around homosexuality.
I am
hoping that attitudes will change after spending time with a real life gay
person and leaving with their humanity, religion, relationship and
heterosexuality still intact. I usually have the one question for them: now
that you know me, do you still think I should be in jail for 14 years?
Nigerian homophobia appears to be
very gender specific, expressing disgust mostly at male homosexuality. A woman
in expressing her support for the anti-gay law and her shock at homosexuality
said: “I can understand two women. But two men? How do they even do it? What
pleasure do they derive?” Indeed, almost all of the persons arrested by
authorities or attacked and beaten by mobs have been males.
A lot of homophobia finds roots
in popular myths, stereotypes and misconceptions about both homosexuality and
gay persons. Foremost among these seems to be the previously mentioned claim
that homosexuality is a Western perversion seeking inroads into Nigerian society-
a claim that falls flat in the face of concrete evidence like bori practices
among others.
Some have claimed that anal sex
is not only wrong but leads to diseases. First, this claim is simplistic in
limiting homosexual behavior to anal sex, totally cutting off lesbian practices
or even non-anal male homosexual practices. It is also based upon the premise
that only homosexuals engage in anal sex. A random sampling of heterosexual
pornography for example, shows that anal sex (mostly males anally penetrating
females) features prominently in heterosexual sex. On the claim that anal
homosexual sex causes diseases, while it is a fact that the HIV prevalence is
much higher among male homosexuals, all unprotected sex, vaginal, anal or even
oral, expose those involved to sexually transmitted diseases.
Murray Lipp, a social justice
activist in response to the stereotype that gay men focus on anal sex, writes
that “the core feature of male homosexuality is sexual attraction to other men,
not an exclusive focus on a particular behavior [like anal sex]”. He further
explains that while anal sex is one possible sexual activity between gay men,
it is not “an activity that all gay men participate in, nor is it one
that heterosexual people never engage in.”
However, perhaps the most
dangerous of all the myths is that which seeks to compare or even equate
homosexuality with pedophilia. It is common to have minority groups which are
hated by the majority branded as being dangerous to the community or worse, to
the vulnerable persons of that community. This helps to justify and legitimize
the public expression of hate. In this way, as Dr. Gregory M. Herek writes in
his article “Facts About Homosexuality
and Child Molestation”, “Jews in the Middle Ages were accused of
murdering Christian babies in ritual sacrifices [and] black men in the United
States were often lynched after being falsely accused of raping white women.”
Herek writes further:
…the
mainstream view among researchers and professionals who work in the area of child
sexual abuse is that homosexual and bisexual men do not pose any special threat
to children. For example, in one review of the scientific literature, noted
authority Dr. A. Nicholas Groth wrote:
Are
homosexual adults in general sexually attracted to children and are
preadolescent children at greater risk of molestation from homosexual adults
than from heterosexual adults? There is no reason to believe so. The research
to date all points to there being no significant relationship between a
homosexual lifestyle and child molestation. The… adult male who sexually
molests young boys is not likely to be homosexual (Groth & Gary, 1982, p.
147).
In a
later literature review, Dr. Nathaniel McConaghy (1998) similarly cautioned
against confusing homosexuality with pedophilia. He noted, "The man who
offends against prepubertal or immediately postpubertal boys is typically not
sexually interested in older men or in women" (p. 259 [McConaghy,
N. (1998). Paedophilia: A review of the evidence. Australian and New Zealand
Journal of Psychiatry, 32(2), 252-265.]).
On the most basic level, the
attempt to link homosexuality with pedophilia ignores one of the most common
child sexual abuse scenarios: the sexual abuse of girl children by male adults.
It also disregards the sexual abuse of male children by female adults. This is
not to say, however, that persons who have previously identified as gay or
homosexual cannot molest children. Homosexuality does not confer sainthood upon
individuals. There exists, just as among heterosexual populations, ‘good’ and
‘bad’ homosexuals. Indeed, the entire spectrum of general human behavior among
heterosexuals is replicated among homosexuals. It is likely that if gay persons
lived freely in our communities, people may begin to see them as real humans
and not just rumored perverts. In at least one report from victims of
homophobic mob attacks in Abuja following the anti-gay law, an apparently
fascinated policeman made one of the suspected gay persons show him his anus and
penis. It is not clear what the policeman sought to achieve from that exercise.
***
Debates around homosexuality and
the acceptance, tolerance or otherwise of it continues around the world, even
in more liberal and secular countries where respect for human rights is less
selective. Nigerians may just need to be more open about discussing sex,
sexuality and sexual identity especially now that legislation has forced the
issue into national consciousness. Samira Askia sees her sudden refusal to hide
who she is to make people comfortable in their homophobia as forcing them to
confront their feelings about the topic. She believes that the more visible gay
persons are, the sooner Nigerians will stop speaking of them in the abstract.
Perhaps, then there will be a sizeable population of Nigerians who understand
that, in Ms. Askia’s words, gay persons “do exist, eat, laugh, love, sleep and
work: just like heterosexuals do.”
*Not her real name
