Africa: Nigeria Opposed to Homosexuality

Evoking, publicly or indirectly, a relation between persons of the same sex is also sanctioned by a 10-year imprisonment. Speaking in the name of the Catholic Church in the country, Cardinal Gabrial Osu, director of social communications for the archdiocese of Lagos, congratulated the government for “its fight against homosexuality.” On January 15, in the Nigerian newspaper Vanguard, he also lamented the fact that the United States had promptly denounced this law.

“The American position should be a surprise for no one,” he declared, for “the West will stop at nothing to impose its beliefs upon the African continent, which always goes to the West asking for financial help and loans.” Cardinal Osu called upon African leaders to “find local economic solutions to their problems, for their tendency is to ask for help from western governments that force them to accept all sorts of conditions for help and loans.”