The West at this moment is not a friend of Nigeria. And it is understandable. From Europe to America, there have been sentiments expressed against Nigeria for the signing into law by our President, the bill criminalising homosexual activities, and, or, marriage. But if one may ask, what exactly does the West want? I think the first line is to remind pro-gay rights activists that in the beginning, God made them Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve or Ada and Eve. That is as simple as it gets. It is something that derives from the laws of nature.
However, I want to add some humour to it. Remember that when the White man paddled his boats across the pacific and entered Africa with his religion, he met Africans, the bush people that we were, marrying more than one wife. In his understanding, the white man preached against it and insisted that the Holy Books he came with, which he gave out freely and took over our lands, legislated against polygamy. He insisted that it was one man, one wife. After so much debate and disagreements, our forebears agreed and followed him. Africans began seeing evil in polygamy and settled for one wife just as the white man wanted it. We all lived with that till this day.
Ironically, the same white man who preached one man one wife to us, came back years later, to begin an excursion into the destruction of the marriage institution. He said marriage was no longer “till death do us part”. He began his exegesis on the individuality of the person and noted that one could quit marriage whenever one felt it was no longer comfortable. He introduced divorce. We began another battle – to understand how a couple who had been part of each other’s life for many years could wake one morning to announce divorce. It was difficult to understand. What of the children, some of us began to wonder. They came in and modified it to say, instead of divorce, couples could ‘separate’. Again, we took it and continued with our lives.
Years later, the same white man stopped referring us to the Holy Books he gave us and started a new argument that it was better to live singly as either a single mother or a single father. Another confusion. Something that was seen as an abominable act in our traditional societies became a norm. They even called it ‘female liberation’ and ‘self-assertion’. Gradually, they destroyed the family. We saw the new wave. Single mothers showed up all over the place. Men started asserting themselves by remaining fathers without wives. They started bearing children with ‘my girlfriend’. It started out in Europe and America. Gradually, we started accepting it as fashionable. We started seeing women who told us things like “you know I can’t tolerate men” and men who would say “No, my guy, I can’t live with a woman.” Effectively, family, consisting of father, mother and children, was destroyed. They had achieved something that made them happy.
Gradually, individualism set in and our traditional family values were destroyed. When you talk of the extended family system in Africa, they laugh at you like you are one barbarian who likes piling up pressure on himself. It worked for them. Culturally, it was un-African. Again, we accepted and lived with it just to ensure that they remain our teachers. Now, when they became tired of feminism and individualism, they started out on a journey of seeking companionship. They invented a new one – homosexuality. They said life was better with same sex even when they could not publicly say it. They say marriage was not about Adam and Eve, but about Adam and Steve or Ada and Eve. It was their understanding. Not ours. The same creatures started rationalising the Holy Books they gave us. They started out on arguments that even the creator did not make a definite pronouncement that marriage must be between Adam and Eve. In their learning, they said even the Holy
Books gave man freedom to select from the specie who to marry.
They are now telling us that the same marriage institution that they referred to as “ordained by God” to be between an Adam (first man) and an Eve (first woman) was rubbish. And they have even gone further than that. They are telling us that even if we do not understand the sense they are making, we must allow humans to behave the way they like in the name of freedom. You see how far we have come? They forget that laws are made for proper conduct of society.
These people told us about Thomas Hobbes and his state of nature. They gave us reasons man had to leave the state of nature to live within reason. Now, they are redirecting our minds. You see them? Remember that when they first came over to this plane, they met us in the state of nature, moving about like the Koma people – naked with little covering of the essential parts. They did not like that. They said it was nauseating seeing people move about in that manner. They brought their clothing. We copied them and started dressing like them. We started covering up everywhere like they did. Over time, they changed. They said we wore parachutes and heavy clothing. They began an exercise into what was good to wear in our region and type of weather. Again, we flowed with the tide to make him happy. We left the state of nature and came into the state of reason and technology. Yet again, they changed.
They began telling our women that they looked more attractive walking about naked. Well, our women walked that road. Our wives began competing with their little girls on who would wear the skimpiest of dresses. And they sold an argument to us that so long as the essential parts were covered, the dress was fine. They forgot that we came from a different cultural milieu. Today, our womenfolk walk the streets dressed like there is scarcity of clothing materials in the market. They saw us with our overflowing dresses – agbada among others, and they said suit was better. How long shall we go on listening and imbibing views from the white man’s land?
All told, homosexuality is un-African. It is against natural laws. If some creatures have decided to transgress the laws of nature and abuse the dictates of natural being, they should live within their joy and leave others out of it. The law that says someone has the right to become gay (against the order of nature) is materially destructive. In a word, the law that permits humans to come lower than animals is simply destructive. So, society must protect itself.
Don’t forget, in the order of being, man is prime. He is a higher being. But when he abdicates that prime position, man becomes lower than dogs. As a dog lover, I have not seen a male dog attempt to mate another male dog, or female dogs attempt to mate one another. Dogs are animals with arguably high intelligence but not as developed as man’s. Logically, if man, a higher being, decides to come lower than a dog in the exercise of his sexuality, I would think such a man has lost every sense of being. For me, it is not about right and freedom. It is about the essence of our being.
•Uchegbu is The UNION’s Editor-at-Large.
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