Reports indicate that an Oyo State based politician, Olawale Adeoye, narrowly escaped mob action on 11th May, 2018. The event occured as party members had a free for all fracas in supremacy battle during a ward congress election at Egbeda Local Government.
Olawale, who attended College of Natural Medicine, got involved in politics in 2018. After his education pursuit in traditional medicine, he started treating those involved in gay practice; with many saying his sympathy with the LGBT community is uncalled for.
According to reports, his attack was said to have been caused by the rumours that he was also also a gay member. ” At a point, someone put a tire on me and was calling for me to be burnt alive”, a source said, adding that if not for the timely intervention of some local vigilante members, he would have been killed.
Reports added that as the rumours of being a gay continues to spread in the community, he then decided to flee from Nigeria. Having been tagged, the party also decided to sideline Olawale and gave the party ticket to someone else to contest as a councilor.
Nigeria’s anti-LGBT laws punishes same-sex relationships or associations with a maximum of a 14-year jail term. “If you’re homosexually inclined, Nigeria is not a place for you,” Chief Superintendent Dolapo Badmos wrote in a now-deleted post on her Instagram page.Last year, a high-ranking police officer issued a warning to gay people living in the country to leave or risk prosecution.
Reports indicate that authorities have often used the law to intimidate the LGBT community and people of different sexual orientation. “We are handling cases of people who were arrested because they had a certain hairstyle or dressed in a way perceived to be gay, being forced to pay bribes because they are threatened with 14 years in jail if they don’t pay up,” a right activist told journalists during an interview.