So, what? If he is Gay: Politics, Polemics, and Scapegoating.

Scapegoating has always been a tool of politics and polemics. For many years Black people were the scapegoat for everything wrong in the world. During the Great Migration in the United States, people running from the Jim Crow South and lynching were considered the menace in the North. Today, migrants from outside the United States appear to be the primary target of discrimination. In Nigeria today, the scapegoats are sexual minorities and minority Christians.

Politics and polemics are Siamese twins, and it takes conscience to prevent their dehumanizing feature. I came online for a few hours yesterday and saw the conversation was about Peter Obi’s son, and my rhetorical question was, so what if he is gay, even though his written response suggests otherwise?

So what?

People's sexual orientations will not change the fact that your hospitals are abattoirs.

Who people choose to love would not change the fact that many people dread going to farms because of insecurity.

The kind of sex or who and how people have sex would not change the fact that the country's infrastructural decay makes many roads in Nigeria death traps.

God forbid that you are kidnapped and they need to raise money for ransom; your family won’t separate lesbian and gay money from the ransom.

If you were flying and there was a danger or you were drowning, you wouldn’t care that the person rescuing you is queer.

If you needed a life-saving intervention and a person walked up to you to rescue you, you wouldn’t ask for their sexual orientation before receiving their help.

None of you have ever asked the driver, pilot, or banker serving you about their adult children sexual orientation before they offer their service.

For the last two years, the writings of queer authors have saved me from six feet below, most especially Audre Lorde and James Baldwin.

Early this year, a day or two after the announcement about "two genders" was made, was when I began my class on Queer Africans. I was scared if I wanted to continue, but I knew why I had designed and proposed the course. I prayed to God and said, "You are love, and perfect love casts out fear. " I went ahead and taught the class, and it turned out to be one of the best classes I have designed and taught.

We, African and Black people, should not "other" anyone. It wasn’t too long ago that scholars, most especially “enlightenment” thinkers, swore that we were less human, and many people still think so, yet we are first to discriminate against others based on their sexual orientation.

Discrimination must be discussed even within LGBTQ++ and not just between heterosexual and non-conforming people. For instance, some individuals believe that "stud on stud" relationships are wrong, along with other similar nonsensical rules.

Specifically in Nigeria, is it not time for us to respond firmly to anyone who seeks to distract or demean through the currency of sexual othering by asserting, “He is gay, lesbian, or trans—so what?”

Maybe Peter Obi's son sexual orientation would affect foreign exchange and inflation; who knows?