By Isma’il Hashim Abubakar
I was prompted to pen this essay by two writeups of prominent newspaper columnists: Mr Gimba Kakanda and Professor Farouk Kperogi. The latter is one of the people I have been following due to their mastery of using his pen to communicate ideas. Both Kakanda and Kperogi have painstakingly struggled to deodorise the infamous Samoa (perhaps it’s more suitable to call it Tamoa) Agreement and exculpate it of its meticulously wrapped pro-LGBTQ+ substances.
Maybe the authors of the document containing details of this agreement are so cunningly sagacious to beat the conscience and intelligence of the Atlanta word master who, as far I know him, is so wide-eyed to read things between the line and discern and decode messages from even unarticulated and not well coughed or well-lettered communications. Farouk Kperogi is not at all that simplistic type of a person that one could hoodwink by suggesting to him that a week is different from seven days or a year is anything else but twelve months.
The 12-page document explicating different stages of agreements entered into by the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific states is so clear in the very first paragraph that “the multiple negotiation levels, the coronavirus crisis and difficulties in reaching agreement on sensitive issues, such as migration management and sexual and reproductive health and rights, …”. A witty reader would not even wait to be told that sexual rights emphasised in the quote would never mean the existing sexual customs prevailing in the beneficiary states just as no one will argue that sexual rights in this sense refer to what the West conceives of as new normal, acceptable sexual culture.
All the dull, lengthy noise and regular references to vague resolutions and procedures in the document, beating around the bush in most instances, reflect strategies meant just to propagate the incongruous norms the West is relentlessly hellbent on imposing on third-world countries. It may also sound controversial if one claims that the so-called autonomous countries like ours are, in real and practical terms, undergoing another form of colonialism in the modern day, of course, heavily pretentious, more diplomatic, possibly negotiable, and less confrontational.
Daily Trust, the newspaper outlet that took centre stage in unravelling Nigeria’s role in this agreement, should be commended for quickly alerting Nigerians to what our increasingly gluttonous, money-hungry leaders who could not resist a dubious multimillion-dollar loan are up to.
The document being circulated currently seems not to be the only manual laying guidelines and terms of the negotiations. It refers to a monitoring group under the Committee on Development (DEVE) set up by the European Parliament, whose consent was crucial in the approval of the negotiations. In the report submitted to the EU through the DEVE committee, several recommendations were adopted, including a particular “chapter on human rights” which “should explicitly list the forms of discrimination that should be combated (such as sexual, ethnic, or religious discriminations) and mention sexual and reproductive rights”.
It appears that while the available document now within public reach may remain implicit and brief about the nature of rights this bill wants to get protected, there are appendixes which may be at the domains of leaders and top representatives of concerned countries and which explain in greater details and specify perhaps in exact terms the list of kinds of the so-called discriminations that must be stopped once the agreement is entered into.
Admittance that there are divergences in positions on sexual orientation and gender identity (LGBTI rights) among EU Member States is not a definite declaration or solemn undertaking that this agreement will not pursue that goal. It doesn’t require any mental labour to know where this agreement is heading, even if it does not now literally endorse LGBTQ+. The reference in the agreement document about scepticism and misgivings nurtured by some affected countries is nothing but a deceptive pretence of objectivity and balancing, such that later it will be presented as a mere debate and leaning toward the LGBTQ+ as a mere result of in-house voting among donor institutions, vetoing the concerns of and leaving affected countries like our own with no option but to accept and be committed to the terms based on which we are handsomely paid.
In fact, without any further denial, disclaimer or clarification, the document observes that “prior to the signing of the agreement in Samoa, several African and Caribbean CSOs called on their governments not to sign the agreement, fearing that it might lead to modifying domestic laws, in particular, to endorse LGBTI rights”. The authors do not attempt to deny the allegation above or make any further comments that will allay existing fears, thereby reminding us tacitly that to be forewarned is to be forearmed.
Both Kakanda and Kperogi capitalise on the lack of literal mention to promote Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ+) in the document, thereby accusing the Daily Trust of misguided reporting but also rubbishing the understanding of the majority of Nigerians who interpreted the clauses emphasising the need to protect sexual rights and orientation as another way of reintroducing LGBTQ+ using the power of juicy loans.
Since Kakanda is in government, we have no difficulty forming the proper framework to read his intervention. As a former activist now enjoying dividends of democracy, one should either keep quiet if one cannot defend the truth or at least not pretend to be ignorant of how Nigeria is run and what are the ulterior motives and hidden goals behind all loans that the third world is lured into accepting.
Kakanda’s points revolve around the absence of explicit devotion and literal commitment to LGBTQ+. Kakanda reiterates the insignificance of the anxiety this new agreement saga is generating by referring to the anti-gay law signed during the Jonathan administration, and he thinks that is absolutely enough to guarantee our safety and to suggest that the money could be collected and consumed without serious implications and disastrous consequences. If Kakanda is sincere, let him advise the government in which he now serves to institute operational frameworks that will deploy the same anti-gay laws enacted about a decade ago to end the LGBTQ+ movement that already practically exists and is being rigorously promoted and advertised via social media platforms.
Meanwhile, Kperogi, who has built a reputation of siding with the masses always against different government antisocial policies, has fallen so low this time around to fail to discern that sexual rights and other terminologies used in the document are not even so vague to think they are different from all those bizarre rights and queer sexual orientation freedoms. We are all not oblivious to how highly sophisticated and cunning heirs of former colonialists are and not as gullible to declare support for the scary LGBTQ+ catchphrase glaringly in their proposal, given that they faced resistance in earlier phases of their project. We ought to be mature enough and vociferously critical to detect proposals to institute LGBTQ+ even by mere mention of key phrases like “gender violence”, “women’s and girl’s empowerment”, “fight against discrimination”, “right of self-determination”, and so on, not to talk of sexual and reproductive health rights.
Kperogi is merely angry that people have been, for operational reasons, refusing to kowtow to his admonition to rise and execute his yet esoteric, misunderstood and almost ‘impracticable’ revolution. Now that people seem to be once again united and appear determined to fight this dubious bill which is at our doorstep, which, to him perhaps, is innocuous or at least less harmful, Kperogi is tactically venting his anger on people and accusing them of misplacing priority.
In other words, people in Kperogi’s theory should better fight anti-masses policies which institutions like the IMF and World Bank are forcing Nigeria to implement than jawbreaking and investing unnecessary energy on sexual rights issues, which, after all, is what he encounters in the U.S day in day out, unlike the excruciating poverty and bad governance that bedevil Nigeria.
At any rate, within a decade or something like that, even as LGBTQ+ right was successfully illegalised and the law to fight it constitutionally still exists, there has been a proliferation of growing LGBTQ+ movements, largely operating without any hitch in the virtual world and particularly on the social media cyberspace. Who knows if institutions behind bills and agreements like the Samoa agreement do not sponsor those movements and groups? Why is there little or no evidence at all to show and establish that those breaking anti-gay laws and other unusual customs have been made to face the wrath of the law?
Sexual rights agents, manifesting in many forms, have now become celebrities and operate freely on the media while clandestinely running ventures that everybody knows are nationally outlawed. Sponsors of these agreements might have been convinced that it is now the right time to secure legal frameworks for protecting their representatives, having taken some years to experiment and implement their projects successfully.
We should not be deceived by any government defence on this matter—either by a government official or a likely bribed or even gagged scholar. We all know well what some powerful elements in the Western world are after when they set goals they want to achieve at all costs, deploying short—and long-term plans, even if the latter will span a century. As things go this way, let us ponder what will happen in the next 50 years for those who will live to see that period.
As people are now sinking into excessive materialism, suffering from a lack of focus and shortsightedness, and unduly obsessed with imitating the Western lifestyle, it is so hard to suggest that posterity could effectively challenge and fight bills like LGBTQ+. Therefore, there is a need to start thinking of ways and techniques to instil zeal and introduce mechanisms for combatting moves like this in future. If they have not succeeded now, they have patience; they could wait and hope to see their plan triumph within less than a century from now. One better way to start tackling LGBTQ+ is to begin addressing the decline of morality that has been mainstreamed on social media now. Otherwise, once the law succeeds one day, God forbid, it will consume us unimaginably.
Isma’il writes from AERC, Rabat and can be reached via iahashim@fugusau.edu.ng.
