Last month, it is noted that Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan tightened the country's laws on homosexuality in the region even further by signing a law to ban gay groups and introduced a 14-year jail sentence for same-sex couples found to have been living together and a 10-year sentence to people who had displayed amorous same-sex relationships publicly.
In an emailed statement from the office of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, same-sex couples could face a life sentence if found guilty repeatedly of engaging in gay sex based on a new bill.
Bloomberg said that the new laws has amplified the human rights abuse and injustice in homosexuals in the African region. Ayo and his six friends were unexpectedly visited by Nigerian secret service officers and upon finding gay pornographic material on some of the group's mobile devices, decided to arrest them on the spot without warrant. Ayo and four of his friends bribed the officers $600 in cash equivalent, while the two, who had no cash, were detained for three nights. A state police spokeswoman claimed that there was no arrest made.
In a February 9 statement, Amnesty International said that since the new Ugandan bill had been passed in December of last year, two people were arrested and were forced to take anal investigations to prove that sexual relations were no longer taken. The International Centre on Advocacy for the Right to Health executive director Ifeanyi Orazulike said the Ugandan incident was a lot tamer than the 14 gay men who were dragged out from their homes at 1AM on February 13 in Abuja by a mob who wielded iron bars and sticks. Four of the men were beaten and detained in a nearby police station and was declared free the next morning because the local police chief said they weren't found guilty of having gay sex,
"How do you subject people to such torture simply because they are gay? I feel terrified," Orazulike said.
In a February 16 statement, US President Barack Obama condemned the decision of Museveni to sign the homophobic bill, and said, "(It will) be a step backward for all Ugandans and reflect poorly on Uganda's commitment to protecting the human rights of its citizens."
Nairobi-based senior researcher on gay rights Neela Ghoshal, on the other hand, told Bloomberg in a phone interview that the move to sign the oppressive bills were political tactics. "When the public gets worried about economic and governance issues, politicians try and swing it back to social issues the public can identify with, and poise themselves as the defenders of the African people against homosexuality," she told the news agency.
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