Family vows to kill son over LGBT identity.
3 min read
The crisis associated with LGBT activities in Nigeria have continued to trail a good number of the community members with sorrow, tears, blood and psychological trauma as well as threats to life. The unacceptability of LGBT persons across the country by family, friends, the political class and faith based institutions has continued to grow wings more in the rural areas of the country where superstition and traditional thinking play major roles in the elevation of such discriminatory acts by deeply religious and traditional persons as well as restive youths.
A certain Igbo family in Imo State, in the Southeastern part of the country has allegedly disowned and threatened to kill one of her sons Mr. Onuoha Emmanuel Christopher on discovery that the man in question belongs to the outlawed LGBT community in Nigeria. The threat according to Umuaka Times investigations had all the characteristics of seriousness as the family is said to be a very strong Christian family. In demonstrating her seriousness, the youths of the community Umuaka Times local affairs correspondents gathered, have also been properly informed allegedly by the family to get Mr. Onuoha Emmanuel Christopher either dead or alive for destroying the Christian integrity of the family following his involvement with the LGBT community.
According to reports made available to Umuaka Times by some youths of the community and Onuoha Emmanuel Christopher, trouble started for Christopher who close friends prefer to address as Chris around December 2023 when he sent his phone for repairs after the phone had broken down. In the gallery of his phone were some pictures he took as a cross-dresser. The telephone engineer according to Chris used the opportunity and invaded the privacy of Onuoha Emmanuel Christopher’s photo gallery and forwarded the pictures to his own phone. The engineer did not stop there; he later presented the pictures to the family and told them that her son has committed an abomination and must be banished.
After watching the pictures, the family summoned Chris for a crucial family meeting where the pictures were presented to him. Not knowing what to say or do, he sensed a serious danger and managed to escape by jumping out from the window. Chris later confirmed to Umuaka Times that he escaped with nothing except his phone he had in his hand during the crucial family meeting.
In her reaction to this development, the family organized a search for him but when they could not establish contacts or clues to his whereabouts, the family subsequently disowned him and further set all his personal belongings in the family ablaze. For now, Chris may adequately pass for an internally displaced person IDP. Several efforts made by Umuaka Times correspondents to speak with the family failed as no family member agreed to hold talks with Umuaka Times on the matter.
In a telephone interview with Umuaka Times, Chris who spoke from his hideout disclosed to the newspaper that the pictures in question were specially snapped to mark his 2023 birthday. Asked if he reported the matter to the police, he disclosed that he would not get justice from the police. “As far as it is an LGBT matter, the police will make the matter worst for me.”
When things like this take place, diverse opinions are expected from the public. Chris also told Umuaka Times that some of his informants told him that the news in the village is that he has been possessed by the evil spirit and needs a spiritual deliverance by a powerful man of God. For his refusal to be delivered from the clutches of the evil spirit, the family disowned him and marked him for extermination.
