"EDITORIAL POSITION:THE NEW ANTI-GAY LAW OF NIGERIA"

Nigeria is a highly religious and cultural nation that is predominantly dominated by Christians and Muslims plus traditional religious followers. The practice of atheism and free-thinking are not pronounced, popular and acceptable across Nigeria. From the Christian, Islamic and traditional viewpoints in Nigeria, the practice of homosexuality is not an acceptable human sexual practice, just like adultery, fornication, masturbation, bestiality and prostitution that are not acceptable to Christianity, Islam and traditional religions of Nigeria.The Christian religion also does not support the practice of polygamy. But Nigeria is a secular nation and constitutional democracy that is not run, governed or administered by the teachings of the Bible, Koran or the traditional/cultural beliefs in Nigeria.

The new anti-gay law in Nigeria is not the biblical, koranic and the cultural solution to homosexuality in all reality. This law is selective, harsh, wicked and unjust for single out only the homosexuals and for criminalizing homosexuals with those lengthy jail terms. This law violates the human rights, the freedom of association and the right to privacy of all Nigerian homosexuals based on the Nigerian 1999 constitution as well as on the international treatise that Nigeria had entered into with the African Union and the United Nations to protect the human rights, the freedom of association and the right to privacy for all Nigerians. This law has now created a second-class Nigerian citizens who are now stigmatized, vulnerable, endangered and unprotected any longer by the Nigerian constitution, This new group of segregated Nigerian homosexuals do not enjoy the equal Nigerian citizenship again with the rest of Nigerians who are not homosexuals in all reality.

Can this political, religious and cultural law of Nigeria help President Jonathan Goodluck to win a reelection back to the Aso Rock villa in 2015 and to recover politically from the impacts of his inept, corrupt, mediocre, visionless and scandal-rooted  government as well as the rapidly collapsing PDP that are all happening under his watch and presidency? Will this law survive in Nigeria in this 21st century in the face of globalization, democracy, internet and international diplomatic pressures? Remember that 15 out of 54 African countries in 2014 have laws in their own books that allow consensual same-sex relationships without criminalization in those 15 countries of Africa. Historically speaking, homosexuality has existed in Africa long before the coming of the European colonial powers and the western civilization. The only thing about homosexuality today in 2014 that is new, strange and unAfrican is the public acceptance of this practice in the open, the public advocating for homosexual rights by gay groups and the new same-sex marriages that are now legal in some western nations.