Islamic religious police have broken up what they claim was a same-sex wedding in the northern Nigerian city of Kano, arresting 25 people.
Kano State’s Hisbah (or religious police) Board says they raided the gathering based on a tip off from a concerned resident, where they discovered a man who was allegedly “planning to tie the knot with another young man at the scene of the illegal assembly.”
“Upon arrival, our personnel discovered a gathering of young men and women who appeared to be conducting a marriage ceremony,” Deputy Commander General, Sheik Mujahid Abubakar said following the raid, according to 21st Century Chronicle.
18 men and seven women were arrested during the raid and will be held in custody while investigations continue.
Not only not recognised, but against the law
Same-sex marriage, and the promotion of such unions, was made a criminal offence in Nigeria in 2014, with those breaking the law facing up to 14 years in prison.
Sharia police have previously broken up alleged same-sex marriages in northern Nigeria in 2007, 2015, 2018 and 2022 but have so far not been successful in securing a conviction against anyone involved in such a gathering.
67 people were arrested at another alleged same-sex wedding in Nigeria’s southern Delta State in 2023.
Twelve of Nigeria’s 36 states have implemented Sharia law since 1999, which operates in parallel to the state and federal criminal justice legal systems in majority Muslim northern Nigeria.
Under Nigeria’s sharia laws, homosexuality can carry the death penalty, though that penalty has never been carried out.
In the rest of Nigeria, those convicted of homosexual offences can be jailed for up to life in prison.
One of the most homophobic countries in the world
According to polling from 2023 by the Pew Research Centre, 97% of Nigerians oppose the legalisation of same-sex marriage.
A 2019 survey by Pew Research found that 91% of Nigerians felt that homosexuals should not be “accepted by society.”
