(for Ondo and other cities)
i.
i saw man die
on the same street
he was born yesterday
i saw a man killed
by the same hands
he shook yesterday
ii.
i saw a people
lost, cannibalized
by blind ignorance
iii.
i saw a god watching
as sinful gods of men
usurped his supremacy
he saw a man die
for being different
in a changing world
‘Gay man beaten to death’ or ‘Man beaten to death for being gay?’
I have observed that most people are besotted with the word ‘gay’, which is just a sexual orientation – wrong or right, which does not change the fact that the person killed is first human.
What happened in Ondo is wrong by all standards, and a man’s life has been taken by force illegally, permanently, irredeemably, irreversibly. I have two problems with the incident:
- He is gay. So what? How does someone’s sexual orientation, expressed in private, mean he deserves death, cold bitter death in public? What happens to alerting police?
- Is lynching legal? Why do we think we have the right to punish sins by death? Do we know what death is? There is no apology that can remedy death. It is too final a punishment to be meted out casually. Jungle justice must stop.
That said, I must state clearly that I do not in anyway think being gay is normal, nor that it should be promoted. But that is a personal sentiment that I would enforce only in my personal space.
