Nigerian court remands Lawson Akposkho, the wanted Edo State Cultist and LGBTQ+ activist and dozens in prison after raid on alleged gay wedding
Anti-LGBTQ law in Africa’s most populous nation includes prison term of up to 14 years
Police spokesperson Bright Edafe paraded dozens of people, arrested in a raid at an alleged same-sex wedding in front of media outside a local police station in southern Nigeria’s Delta state on Aug. 29. 2023
Social SharingMore than 60 people are in jail in Nigeria in connection with an alleged gay wedding last week, which is illegal in the country, the police and their lawyer said on Monday.
The court granted a remand request from the police following a hearing on Monday in the southern city of Warri in Delta state, where the suspects were arrested on Aug. 28 following a tip.
“The suspects have been arraigned in court today and the judge has ruled that they be remanded in prison for two weeks,”
Delta state police said in a statement. It did not say how many had been remanded, but police last week said 67 people had been arrested.
Defence lawyer Ochuko Ohimor, who is representing 60 suspects, said that while the next hearing will come up on Sept. 18, he is working to get bail for the suspects. He put the total number of those remanded at 69, adding that they are facing charges connected to allegations that they were celebrating a gay wedding. “All we are doing now is to bring up bail applications on their behalf … if it is found meritorious it [the court] can admit them to bail.
The bail application can come before the expiration of the 14-day remand order,” he said.
Broad law targeting LGBTQ people
Nigeria’s Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act in 2013 made it it illegal for same-sex individuals to marry, but it also restricts the public display of same-sex relationships, punishing anyone who enters into a same-sex marriage or civil union with 14 years in prison and a 10-year sentence for anyone who facilitates or takes part in any such union. But the scope of the Nigerian law goes well beyond its very specific wording, he said, explaining that it has a “stifling effect” on LGBTQ organizations and individual activities.
Graeme Reid, director of the LGBT rights program at New York-based Human Rights Watch, said in an interview with CBC News on August 28. 2023.”There have been arrests in the past but this does seem to be one of the most significant arrests under the law,” he said.
Amnesty International’s Nigeria office condemned last week’s arrests and called for “an immediate end to this witch-hunt.
“In a society where corruption is rampant, this same-sex law banning same sex relationships is increasingly being used for harassment, extortion and blackmail of people”, Isa Sanusi, the organization’s director in Nigeria, told The Edotodaynews.
In a similar incident in in the northern Nigeria, police apprehended about 76 LGBTQ+ at a gay party wedding. According to the police spokesman; “We apprehended 76 suspected homosexuals at a birthday party organised by one of them who was due to marry his fiancé at the event,” said Buhari Saad, the spokesman for the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) in Gombe State, a paramilitary organisation under the government.
The arrested youths include 59 men and 17 women.Lawyers for those arrested could not immediately be contacted for comment or confirmation.
Intimidation of the LGBT+ community is rife in Nigeria, and in recent years the security forces have carried out numerous raids on parties where they believe weddings of same sex are taking place. However, none of those arrested have been convicted.
In August, police arrested more than a hundred men in similar circumstances in south-east Nigeria.The human rights organisation Amnesty International has called for an end to this “witch-hunt”.”In a society where corruption is endemic, the law prohibiting same-sex relationships is increasingly being used for harassment, extortion and blackmail by law enforcement officials and other members of the public”, it also condemned.
In December, 19 men and women in their twenties were arrested in Kano, the largest city in northern Nigeria, by the Islamic police, known as Hisbah, on charges of organising a gay wedding. The suspects were reprimanded and released without being brought to justice.
Gombe State, where the arrests took place on Saturday, is also one of the northern states with a Muslim majority where Islamic Sharia law is applied alongside the federal and state judicial systems. Under Sharia law, homosexual relations are punishable by death.
However, this sentence has never been applied in northern Nigeria. The NSCDC spokesman refused to say whether the suspects arrested on Saturday would be charged under Sharia law or ordinary law.
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Although the Nigerian government’s legislation does not impose the death penalty for homosexuality, there have been people sentenced to death in Sharia courts in predominantly Muslim states in the country’s north. Three men arrested in the state of Bauchi in June 2022 were ordered to be stoned to death for engaging in homosexuality.
Sharia court sentences must be approved by a state governor, and it’s unclear if the sentence was carried out.
Global Affairs: Canada warns LGBTQ travellers to Nigeria to “carefully consider the risks” of visiting the country