Group protests in Canada over LGBTQ discrimination in Nigeria

Some Nigerians residents in Canada stormed the Toronto Pride parade covering events to stage a peaceful protest against the over marginalization and discrimination of LGBT communities in Nigeria.

The protesters are asking among other things, that same-sex unions and relationships, like every other gender, ought to be highly respected and protected.

“SUPPORT LGBT IN NIGERIA” reads a placard with one of the protesters who is a Nigerian, Afolabi Sulaiman.

Sulaiman, although, said he is not gay, but he has families and close friends that are gays.

He noted that same-sex genders should not be discriminated against, rather, the society should be more accepting and embracing of LGBT COMMUNITIES.

Since the criminalisation of sexual relationships between people of the same sex in January 2014, the Nigerian LGBTTQQIAAP (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, ally, pansexual, and other variants, hereafter referred to as LGBTQ) community has faced a new wave of discrimination, hostility and rejection.

The Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act (SSMPA), signed into law in 2014 by former President Goodluck Jonathan, was enacted on the premise that the Nigerian culture is antithetical to homosexuality. With the population of the country largely divided between Christians and Muslims, there was also a religious urgency to the prohibition.

The country has been unrelenting in letting the world know why it deemed it justified treating LGBT persons as criminals, not as citizens.

Sulaimon, like other protesters, said he saw nothing wrong in their choices in what they choose with their own body and their feelings.

They said everyone has exclusive rights to choose their sex and what they want, and in return, they ought to be respected.