Man Hunted Over Alleged Involvement in Bisexual Practices, Goes Into Hiding
A young man, Moses Avwerosughene Agbaluwa, has gone into hiding, as he is wanted by the police over his alleged secret love affair with a fellow man in Benin City, Edo State.
Moses was said to have been implicated in several sex tapes, recordings that detailed his amorous escapades with a gay lover, Michael, who was recently arrested by the police at Ugbowo, the host community of the University of Benin.
Michael’s belongings and phone had been seized by a local taskforce established by the highly homophobic Ugbowo community to check the overt display of same-sex behavior by some students.
The seizure revealed all the data on Michael’s phone following an investigation, and it was through this process that the sex videos were found.
Furious, the taskforce raided Moses’s apartment in an attempt to arrest him, but he could not be found. They, however, spread news of his involvement in gay practices, which drew scorn and disdain from fellow students.
Moses’s evasion of arrest notwithstanding, the anti-gay taskforce and the police have launched a manhunt for him. The taskforce has reportedly threatened to mercilessly deal with him whenever they find him, before handing him over to the police ; if he survives the beating.
The fate of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender persons in Nigeria hangs in the balance, as the clampdown on them by local communities and the police has increased, especially in the southern region of the country.
Several LGBT persons have been killed by irate mobs expressing disgust and disapproval of same-sex practices in traditional communities, of which Benin City is one.
Besides community abhorrence, same-sex relationships are criminalized in Nigeria under the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act of 2013, which prescribes prison terms of up to 14 years if offenders are found guilty.
Most traditional African communities abhor LGBT activities because they are considered a serious abomination against the gods of the land. Therefore, such taboos must not be tolerated, and they attract severe punishment, including banishment in many cultures.
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As a result, many LGBT members have been killed through jungle justice, while several others have narrowly escaped death but not without injuries inflicted on them by locals who happily take the law into their own hands in such matters.
Sensing danger as a result of threats of arrest from the police, who have reportedly traced him to his home in Lagos, about 250 kilometers from Benin, and due to threatening phone calls from strange numbers, Moses has reportedly gone into hiding.
Same-sex relationships remain criminalized in Nigeria under the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act of 2013.
As at the time of filing this report, the whereabouts of Moses remain unknown.
