With the United States of America and their cousins legalizing same sex marriage in their countries, Nigerians and the entire Africans took their time to condemn the act. The condemnation is still on especially with the recent visit of President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria to the White House and that of President Barack Obama of United States of America to his home country Kenya.
There have been various signs and messages to speak against same sex marriage in Africa and in my usual way, I just want to talk about the things everyone has failed to see even when our eyes are open.
Same sex or same sex marriage
Everyone is busy fighting against same sex marriage as if there is nothing like same sex in Africa. It is very funny that even the intellectuals amongst us forgot that only people involved in homosexual practice can talk about going into same sex marriage.
My question is this, do we have gays and lesbians in Nigeria? Do we have gay or lesbian roommates or flat mates in Africa? You have to believe me that by omission or commission everyone in this country or continent has come across a homosexual which means they are living amongst us.
We know them, we do business with them, we live with them and yet we still come out and talk to the western world as if we are all saints here. Who knows what two male roommates do every night and it is certain we can’t take that away from the females who are more active in this act. It is just for us to accept it that the unthinkable is already happening here even when we have not legalized it. This could be like abortion which is illegal, yet taking place on daily basis in this continent.
What we cannot accept
Men having sex with men is a common thing in Nigeria these days and every police officer will tell you that it has somehow become a form of punishment for those in detention. If you doubt this, tell me how inmates satisfy their sexual urge while in the cell. There have been tales of the inmates being paid to have sex with a new person in the cell and this has been going on and on with no one saying anything about it.
Homosexuality so far has never been called a genetic disorder or psychological disorder by any scientist, it has just been accepted as a way of life same way we accepted alcoholism, fornication, armed robbery and the rest of it.
Even lawyers will agree with me that homosexuality can never be described as a crime against humanity unlike armed robbery, rape and murder. It is just a way of life which is not morally acceptable because of our religion and continent.
While we are busy condemning it and planning on how to jail them, no one has ever said a thing on how we can cub the menace it is causing in our society.
Today’s parents watch their male kids wanting to be like a girl and they say nothing about it, others feel comfortable because their daughters are always hanging out with fellow girls and they are relaxed because their children are not doing anything wrong with boys, not knowing that the worst is already happing under their nose.
We can only start fighting it when we accept that it is here with us.
Africa in theory
I should have said Nigeria in theory because this is one part of the world where a sinner is fighting sin. We often play Salvation Army in moral cases and I just come to wonder if we are really the right people who are supposed to be fighting for God in issues like this.
We easily skip the path of history, a good reason why we mostly talk instead of acting when we are faced with issues of this magnitude. This is when we know the type of writers we have in this continent because all of them go on looking for quotes and Bible verses to make their works beautiful without saying how we can change what is facing us.
There is no way one can buy a set of screwdrivers and say he would never be using a particular one. We have copied many things from the western world; we still want many things from them yet we publicly denounce gay marriage, when it was already included in the pack we bought earlier.
I am not negatively minded, but we should all look at wearing trousers to church for instance, it was an unthinkable issue in 80s, in 90s it became a controversial issues and today, we have them everywhere even in the churches that made it look like it would never happen around their gates.
Same sex marriage was unthinkable some time ago and we have come to the controversial stage after which the next will be its acceptance. We will accept it if we fail to tell our children to reject it voluntarily.
Freewill is what every nation is preaching and if cannot do anything to promote it in Africa, force will always be getting us the other result.
If you doubt me on this issue of freewill, look at vices like cultism, pornography and drug addictions, alcoholism and others in that line which are said to be addictive. No one has ever denounced them by force. It takes counseling and helping the victim make up his mind for one to drop them.
Armed robbers even get worse after coming out from jail.
Salvation Army without intelligence unit
Imagine if God had just 100 laws, then will it be possible for someone guilty of 99 to judge someone guilty of one? Homosexuality is a huge sin in the sight of God and one reason Sodom and Gomorra were destroyed. In as much as I detest it, we should all wake up to know what we are fighting.
The spread of homosexuality has nothing to do with politics or lifestyle, this is about what was said in the Bible. The devil is closing up his chapter and we are already here at the end time. Why can’t we see it and change our tactics.
Priests, engineers, teachers, doctors, armed robbers, touts, students, politicians, business men and so on are homosexuals in this continent yet we are busy fighting them at our borders with the western world.
They are here and with time, they will grow to the extent that they will speak and we will listen. Imagine when 70% of our lawmakers will be promoted by those pushing the same sex marriage agenda, what do you think will happen? These people are rich and influential, they are not talking because they are waiting for the right time.
Our salvation armies are busing writing articles, starting up harsh tags and media buzzes for self-recognition when on daily bases, the sexual orientation of at least ten children in every country is redirected towards homosexuality because someone has made them the kind of promise they cannot reject.
What are we doing about the entertainment and political sectors where young people are being molested by people of same sex with them? How many of our salvation armies have done anything about it.
The western world will keep exporting gay culture to us and the people we have here will keep increasing especially now that a man and a man could be granted marriage visa. What a world.
What we must do
Homosexuals are our brothers, sisters and friends. If we say kill them all, there would probably be a burial ceremony in every home in the continent. But we can still save our children whom at a tender age have joined Facebook and are being called ‘sweet heart’ by celebrities and people of same sex with them whom they cannot refuse.
Because no social media can block a user for making gay comments, it means places like Facebook and Whatsapp are now free play ground to initiate our children.
It shouldn’t stop at our presidents in Africa making big comments against President Barack Obama’s plan to export same sex marriage to Africa; they should wake up and launch a serious sexual reorientation programmes for their citizens. They should invest in this so that young people’s mindset will be changed especially to give them the strength to report cases of molestation and approaches.
Religious organizations should move beyond long sermons and make direct contact with victims of this scourge. The devil still has his powers and rebuking him will never be just enough, we should also pray for the redemption of those involved in this. They are not the devil, they are just being used by him.
I know we will still want to monetize the programme but whatever we do to win this war will really be worth it. This is not a theoretical war my dear ‘Salvation Armies’, wake up everyone, don’t just detest same sex marriage and then sit down in your homes, we need to help someone today and the government must step in to make this happen.
There is a teenager somewhere in incubation state, we can stop him/her from hatching into a full-fledged homosexual. There is another adult wondering when to quit, he/she needs just someone that will not mock him/her to say the time is now.
There are so much we can achieve if we even expunge our stigmatization mindset and encourage them to be ‘normal’ like us. We can save people, we can save Nigeria and we can save Africa.
Just remember that if we do nothing today, there will come a time when we cannot do anything because the number of those fighting for marriage equality have run into hundreds of thousands. Just remember that in USA, it took just a bunch of judges to rule on the matter, it will only be a matter of time for us to have judges like that.
The time to act is now.
Chinedu Hardy Nwadike, is a novelist, blogger, newspaper columnist, he writes from Owerri, Imo State. chikinow@yahoo.com 08038704454
