Friday, 21 February 2014
Sound Sultan To Dine With Queen Elizabeth II
On Anti-gay Law: “This is an unjust law, it should be repealed” writes Chimamanda Adichie
I will call him Sochukwuma. A thin, smiling boy who liked to play with us girls at the university primary school in Nsukka. We were young. We knew he was different, we said, ‘he’s not like the other boys.’ But his was a benign and unquestioned difference; it was simply what it was. We did not have a name for him. We did not know the word ‘gay.’ He was Sochukwuma and he was friendly and he played oga so well that his side always won.
In secondary school, some boys in his class tried to throw Sochukwuma off a second floor balcony. They were strapping teenagers who had learned to notice, and fear, difference. They had a name for him. Homo. They mocked him because his hips swayed when he walked and his hands fluttered when he spoke. He brushed away their taunts, silently, sometimes grinning an uncomfortable grin. He must have wished that he could be what they wanted him to be. I imagine now how helplessly lonely he must have felt. The boys often asked, “Why can’t he just be like everyone else?”
Possible answers to that question include ‘because he is abnormal,’
‘because he is a sinner, ‘because he chose the lifestyle.’ But the
truest answer is ‘We don’t know.’ There is humility and humanity in
accepting that there are things we simply don’t know. At the age of 8,
Sochukwuma was obviously different. It was not about sex, because it
could not possibly have been – his hormones were of course not yet fully
formed – but it was an awareness of himself, and other children’s
awareness of him, as different. He could not have ‘chosen the lifestyle’
because he was too young to do so. And why would he – or anybody –
choose to be homosexual in a world that makes life so difficult for
homosexuals?
The new law that criminalizes homosexuality is popular among
Nigerians. But it shows a failure of our democracy, because the mark of a
true democracy is not in the rule of its majority but in the protection
of its minority – otherwise mob justice would be considered democratic.
The law is also unconstitutional, ambiguous, and a strange priority in a
country with so many real problems. Above all else, however, it is
unjust. Even if this was not a country of abysmal electricity supply
where university graduates are barely literate and people die of
easily-treatable causes and Boko Haram commits casual mass murders, this
law would still be unjust. We cannot be a just society unless we are
able to accommodate benign difference, accept benign difference, live
and let live. We may not understand homosexuality, we may find it
personally abhorrent but our response cannot be to criminalize it.
A crime is a crime for a reason. A crime has victims. A crime harms
society. On what basis is homosexuality a crime? Adults do no harm to
society in how they love and whom they love. This is a law that will not
prevent crime, but will, instead, lead to crimes of violence: there are
already, in different parts of Nigeria, attacks on people ‘suspected’
of being gay. Ours is a society where men are openly affectionate with
one another. Men hold hands. Men hug each other. Shall we now arrest
friends who share a hotel room, or who walk side by side? How do we
determine the clunky expressions in the law – ‘mutually beneficial,’
‘directly or indirectly?’
Many Nigerians support the law because they believe the Bible
condemns homosexuality. The Bible can be a basis for how we choose to
live our personal lives, but it cannot be a basis for the laws we pass,
not only because the holy books of different religions do not have equal
significance for all Nigerians but also because the holy books are read
differently by different people. The Bible, for example, also condemns
fornication and adultery and divorce, but they are not crimes.
For supporters of the law, there seems to be something about
homosexuality that sets it apart. A sense that it is not ‘normal.’ If we
are part of a majority group, we tend to think others in minority
groups are abnormal, not because they have done anything wrong, but
because we have defined normal to be what we are and since they are not
like us, then they are abnormal. Supporters of the law want a certain
semblance of human homogeneity. But we cannot legislate into existence a
world that does not exist: the truth of our human condition is that we
are a diverse, multi-faceted species. The measure of our humanity lies,
in part, in how we think of those different from us. We cannot – should
not – have empathy only for people who are like us.
Some supporters of the law have asked – what is next, a marriage
between a man and a dog?’ Or ‘have you seen animals being gay?’
(Actually, studies show that there is homosexual behavior in many
species of animals.) But, quite simply, people are not dogs, and to
accept the premise – that a homosexual is comparable to an animal – is
inhumane. We cannot reduce the humanity of our fellow men and women
because of how and who they love. Some animals eat their own kind,
others desert their young. Shall we follow those examples, too?
Other supporters suggest that gay men sexually abuse little boys.
But pedophilia and homosexuality are two very different things. There
are men who abuse little girls, and women who abuse little boys, and we
do not presume that they do it because they are heterosexuals. Child
molestation is an ugly crime that is committed by both straight and gay
adults (this is why it is a crime: children, by virtue of being
non-adults, require protection and are unable to give sexual consent).
There has also been some nationalist posturing among supporters of
the law. Homosexuality is ‘unafrican,’ they say, and we will not become
like the west. The west is not exactly a homosexual haven; acts of
discrimination against homosexuals are not uncommon in the US and
Europe. But it is the idea of ‘unafricanness’ that is truly insidious.
Sochukwuma was born of Igbo parents and had Igbo grandparents and Igbo
great-grandparents. He was born a person who would romantically love
other men. Many Nigerians know somebody like him. The boy who behaved
like a girl. The girl who behaved like a boy. The effeminate man. The
unusual woman. These were people we knew, people like us, born and
raised on African soil. How then are they ‘unafrican?’
If anything, it is the passage of the law itself that is
‘unafrican.’ It goes against the values of tolerance and ‘live and let
live’ that are part of many African cultures. (In 1970s Igboland, Area
Scatter was a popular musician, a man who dressed like a woman, wore
makeup, plaited his hair. We don’t know if he was gay – I think he was –
but if he performed today, he could conceivably be sentenced to
fourteen years in prison. For being who he is.) And it is informed not
by a home-grown debate but by a cynically borrowed one: we turned on CNN
and heard western countries debating ‘same sex marriage’ and we decided
that we, too, would pass a law banning same sex marriage. Where, in
Nigeria, whose constitution defines marriage as being between a man and a
woman, has any homosexual asked for same-sex marriage?
This is an unjust law. It should be repealed. Throughout history,
many inhumane laws have been passed, and have subsequently been
repealed. Barack Obama, for example, would not be here today had his
parents obeyed American laws that criminalized marriage between blacks
and whites.
An acquaintance recently asked me, ‘if you support gays, how would
you have been born?’ Of course, there were gay Nigerians when I was
conceived. Gay people have existed as long as humans have existed. They
have always been a small percentage of the human population. We don’t
know why. What matters is this: Sochukwuma is a Nigerian and his
existence is not a crime.
Judge Sentences Wife Killer, slain banker Titilayo’s husband to death
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| Akolade Arowolo |
The judge said that the prosecution proved their case beyond reasonable doubt and established that Mr. Arowolo was responsible for his wife’s death.
The convict fell in the dock and burst into tears after the judge condemned him.
Akolade Arowolo, the unemployed graduate charged for the murder of his banker wife, Titilayo Omozoje, was on Friday sentenced to death by hanging.
A Lagos High Court, Ikeja, presided over by Justice Lateefat Okunnu found Arowolo guilty of one- count charge of murder and sentenced him to death for the murder of Titilayo in June 2011.
He was alleged to have stabbed Titilayo to death on June 24, 2011 at their residence, No. 8, Akindeinde Street, Isolo, Lagos.
Justice Okunnu, citing various statements made by the defendant and authorities said the prosecution led by the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) Mrs. Olabisi Odugbesan, has proved its case beyond reasonable doubt.
“The prosecution has proved its case beyond reasonable doubt. I hereby found you guilty for the offence of murder. You are hereby sentenced to death by hanging, “the judge declared.
Immediately the verdict was pronounced on him, Arowolo, who held tight to the Holy Bible in the dock, throughout the four hours the judgment lasted, broke down, rolling in the dock and shouted, “Jesus, why? I did not do it. What would happen to Olamide?”
Olamide is the only product of the two- year marriage between the convict and the deceased.
Justice Okunnu based her judgment on three key issues – whether the victim was dead; whether the accused person was responsible for the act and whether he carried it out intentionally.
The judge said evidences from both the prosecution and defence witnesses confirmed that the victim was dead.
She also said there were enough evidences that showed that the deceased died as a result of multiple injuries to her chest and abdomen arising from multiple stabs that was inflicted on her.
The judge said that it was also clear in the evidences before the court that no other person entered the couple’s flat which remained locked until the second day when the brother to the defendant, Toyin, went in through the roof of the next flat and discovered the body of the deceased on bed.
“This eliminates any outsider at material point in time. The doctrine of last seen in law came into fore here. This means that the person last seen bears full responsibility for the death. It supports the proof already before the court. It supports the argument and adds probative value to the prosecution’s case. That shows it was the defendant who killed his wife.
“It is my finding that it is none other than the defendant himself who stabbed Omozoje to death. After eliminating all other options, I find that it was the defendant who stabbed his wife,” she said.
Ousted Nigerian CBN Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi Interview Immediately After His Arrival From Niger
This exclusive interview with Sanusi Lamido Sanusi took place after he was ousted, in Lagos shortly after his arrival from Niamey in Niger
Republic following his ouster from office by President Goodluck
Jonathan.
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