New Nigerian Bill Will Punish Gay Marriage with Five Years in Jail

New Nigerian Bill Will Punish Gay Marriage with Five Years in Jail

November 1, 2011

3

Nigerian legislators have started hearings this weeks on the controversial bill meant to criminalise same-sex marriage and could make it punishable by a five-year jail term.

According to Reuters, the senate body is expected to vote on the bill, which was proposed by the national assembly, in the next couple of weeks.

Nigeria is the latest African nation to implement stricter laws against homosexuality, angering human rights groups. British PM David Cameron even went so far as to threaten the withdrawal of some aid to those countries who don't support gay rights.

"(A) marriage contract entered between persons of the same gender is hereby prohibited in Nigeria," reads a version of the bill published on the senate website.

"Any persons or group that witnesses ... that aids the solemnisation of a same sex marriage contract commits an offence and is liable to a term of 5 years imprisonment .."

Under existing federal law, sodomy is punishable by jail, while in some northern states practising Islamic Sharia law it carries the death sentence.

According to the senate website, one version of the bill would outlaw any "coming together of persons of same sex with the purpose of living together as husband and wife or for other purposes of same sexual relationship".

Two similar bills have been proposed since 2006 but failed to pass before the expiry of the parliamentary term, according to Reuters. Nigerian gays, who are often too terrified of persecution to speak out publicly, voiced opposition at the senate hearing.

"A society that stifles sexual and other identities discourages the recognition of human dignity. LGBTI rights are human rights," said Otibho Obiowu, a representative of the Nigerian Lesbian, Gays, Bisexual, Transsexuals and Intersexual (LGBTI) association.

However, anti-gay sentiment is strong in the country with a majority condemning it as taboo before God and tradition, so the new legislation will meet little opposition.

"If we accept that two consenting adults can marry, we will soon ... have to ... argue whether mother and son, father and daughter are not free to marry," Michael Ekpenyong, secretary general of the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria said in Monday's hearing.

Senate President David Mark voiced support for the bill.

"My faith as Christian abhors it. It is incomprehensible to contemplate same sex marriage. I cannot understand it. I cannot be a party to it," he told the hearing, deriding what he called "the importation of a foreign culture".

Threats by British Prime Minister David Cameron to cut aid to African countries that do not respect gay rights have sparked outrage in aid-dependent Uganda and Malawi.

However, oil-rich Nigeria might be able to do without the foreign aid.