Conservative Nigerians were outraged when the wedding pictures of Nigeria’s most prominent LGBT activist and his partner emerged online in November last year. They screamed blue murder: that they were a brazen affront to public decency and had the potential to corrupt the callow minds of the young who were highly vulnerable and impressionable.

The origin of this rage can be traced to the year 2004, when former President Olusegun Obasanjo boldly declared that there were no gays in Nigeria. Bisi Alimi must have taken this personal and used the widely viewed platform of the then television rave of the moment, ‘New Dawn on ten’, to become Nigeria’s first openly gay man.

The authorities were visibly outraged and began to censor subsequent editions of the show before it went off air. The major achievement of the ‘coming out’ was that it began the process of skewing public opinion to be in favour of discourses around the issue that was hitherto regarded as a taboo.

In 2005, Bisi Alimi, Olumide Femi Makanjuola and some other members of the local LGBT community formed The Initiative For Equal Rights (TIERS), which has gone on to become Nigeria’s largest LGBT organisation.

In 2011, the Nigerian Senate – under the leadership of Senator David Bonaventure Alechenu Mark - was considering the same sex marriage bill. Four prominent Nigerians virulently opposed the bill. Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka criticised it and questioned the intellectual capacity of the senators, arguing that they should go back to school as they were attempting to legislate on what two consenting adults did within the confines of their bedrooms. Ms Ayo Obe, a popular human rights lawyer and former president of the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) bared her fangs against it, citing human rights violation concerns. Prof Kole Shettima of the John & Catherine Mac Arthur Foundation blasted the members of the highest law-making body of the National Assembly. Chude Jideonwo, co-founder of Red Media Africa, organisers of the most popular youth awards ‘The Future Awards’ wrote an article which he captioned ‘Why the anti-gay bill sickens me’ and placed it strategically on the Cable News Network (CNN). It is common knowledge that the CNN is the world’s largest media organisation that backs liberal causes – from abortion to gay rights, stem cell research, euthanasia, eugenics, invitro fertilisation – to baby sex determination through unnatural means, etc. Three of its prominent journalists: Richard Quest, Don Lemon and Anderson Cooper are all openly gay.

The Senate must be commended for adhering to the maxim that while the minority has a say, the majority should have their way. In the public hearing of the bill, it gave room for the members of the LGBT community, both at home and in the Diaspora, to freely express their opposition to it in the hallowed red chambers. Based on natural justice and good conscience – coupled with the popular aspirations of the people based on their culture, mores, religion and values – the Senate criminalised same-sex marriage relations in 2012.

The international community screamed blue murder. Then United States president, Barak Obama and British Prime Minister Cameron had earlier threatened to withdraw foreign aid, if we didn’t recognise same sex marriage relations. Some other African states like Ghana, Uganda, Kenya had their sovereignty being made jest of through this ‘Big Brother’ threat. Amnesty International, infamously called for Nigeria’s head. These were no idle threats as the World Bank president, Jim Yong Kim, told an audience in the 2016 Pride and Prejudice that he blocked a critical health-care project in Uganda because of their failure to accept the LGBT agenda. It didn’t matter that many lives were ruined all because of the inordinate ambition of the ruinous Bretton Woods institution that has caused pain and hardship in Third World nations through its anti-people policies.

In 2014, the then President Goodluck Jonathan sealed the ‘nail on the coffin’ by giving his presidential assent to the highly contentious bill.

Having lost in the legislature and presidency, the powerful gay lobby is aggressively using the media to achieve its sinister purpose of the depopulation of the African continent. Jideonwo, who founded the Enough is Enough group, had earlier worked as a scheduler for the ‘New Dawn’ show anchored by Funmi Iyanda. The group which touts itself as an advocacy group for good governance is now being run by Yemi Adamolekun, an American-, LSE- and Oxford- trained activist. They organised a show - New Media and Governance show- last year in which they invited Bashir Ahmad, the personal assistant on new media to President Muhammadu Buhari, Sola Plumptre, a top-shot at the highly-regarded Alder Consulting and Idris Okuneye aka Bobrisky, who prides himself as Africa’s first male barbie and cross-dresser. The idea – with the use of body language - was to get the three of them to speak as panelists to communicate a message to the Nigerian youths that it was perfectly okay to cross dress and even be gay. Let us not forget that the controversial Bobrisky warned Nigerian women that he had the ‘wiles’ to snatch their husbands from them and so they should be very careful not to incur his wrath.

Y Naija, which is owned by Chude Jideonwo and Debola Williams, organised an event in collaboration with The Initiative for Equal Rights where former presidential spokesman, Dr Reuben Abati, was invited as a guest speaker. He spoke glowingly of the LGBT agenda and the plea for gay rights to be radically advanced in the country. Jideonwo’s pro gay views are well known. In an interview which he granted to Kadaria Ahmed, who anchors Straight Talk Africa, he was quoted to have said “My belief in gay rights is deeply-rooted.” As a public opinion moulder, the youths are clearly in big trouble.

The government should not rejoice with the criminalisation of same sex relations, as the war has only just begun. The media is now the fall guy for the propagation of these destructive, radical views. It is high time the government paid close attention to this havoc that is being ruthlessly unleashed on the naive Nigerian and African youths.

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