Four men are the latest victims of Nigeria’s anti-LGBTQ+ mob violence
Four men became the latest victims of anti-LGBTQ+ mob “justice” in the African country of Nigeria earlier this month, after they were accused of engaging in consensual same-sex sexual activity.
As the Los Angeles Blade reports, the four young men were paraded down a street and run out of Edo State capital Benin City on November 17 wearing only their boxer shorts. The angry mob threatened to kill them if they ever returned.
Nigerian LGBTQ+ activist Samson Mikel told the Blade that queer people have become scapegoats in Benin City, which he described as “backward” and a hotbed of “scammers and other crimes.”
“The people are proud of their roughness, they are never concerned about these other crimes or how the government is impoverishing them, but will light gay men on fire the moment they think,” Mikel said.
LGBTQ+ people he insisted, simply want to “live and experience love.”
“They are not the cause of the economic meltdown in the country, neither are they the reason why there are no jobs in the streets of Nigeria,” Mikel said.
The November 17 incident is just the latest example of the epidemic of mob violence in Nigeria. Between January 2012 and August 2023, Amnesty International recorded at least 555 people who were killed by violent mobs across the country, according to a report released in October. Of those victims, 32 were burnt alive, 2 were buried alive, and 23 were tortured to death.
“The menace of mob violence is perhaps one of the biggest threats to the right to life in Nigeria,” Amnesty International Nigeria director Isa Sanusi said in a statement. “The fact that these killings have been happening for a long time, with few cases investigated and prosecuted, highlights the authorities’ shocking failure to uphold and fulfil their obligation to protect people from harm and violence.”
As Daniel Anthony wrote for LGBTQ Nation earlier this month, LGBTQ+ people are especially at risk of being targeted: “The combination of strict anti-LGBTQ+ laws, social stigma, and a flawed justice system that fails to protect minorities has created an environment where the lives of queer individuals are not only expendable but also actively endangered.”
Homosexuality is illegal in Nigeria. The country’s Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act, which was signed into law by former President Goodluck Jonathan in 2014, makes same-sex relationships punishable by up to 14 years in prison. In predominantly Muslim areas of northern Nigeria, homosexuality is punishable by death under Sharia law, though death penalties passed by Sharia courts must be approved by the state governor. According to Daily Trust, the punishment has never been enforced.
According to Anthony, Nigeria saw a dramatic surge in violence and mob attacks against LGBTQ+ in the six years after the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act became law.
“Homophobic mobs typically operate without fear of legal repercussions, knowing that the public is on their side,” he wrote, citing a 2019 Pew Research survey that found that 87% of Nigerians oppose gay rights. “These mob attacks are often perceived not as crimes, but as acts of moral policing — methods for the community to ‘cleanse’ itself of perceived corruption.”
As one man who witnessed the “lynching” of two gay men in Port-Harcourt, Nigeria, told Anthony, “We catch homosexuals all the time and teach them a lesson they won’t forget.”
The November 17 incident also follows another similar mob attack in Edo Statelast month, in which two men were allegedly caught “engaging themselves indecently as fellow men” in a car. At least one of the men, 32-year-old Eguabor Precious, was attacked by a mob and beaten unconscious. He was reportedly handed over to police, but managed to escape. Authorities have offered “a handsome reward” for information leading to his capture.
