Feminist Coalitin, a group of gender rights activists, says it is now expanding its campaign against police brutality to include a call to restore the dignity of homosexuals, transgender and other non-conformist groups in Nigeria.
“Our communal fight to #EndSARS is inclusive of the LGBGTQ+ community who are also harassed, assaulted and killed by police,” the group said on Twitter Sunday evening. “They deserve the same justice we seek & even more so, as they are also a target of the law. You can’t be what you fight against!”
LGBTQ+ is widely defined as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer and others.
The comments came days after Twitter’s Jack Dorsey recognised the group as the face of the ongoing campaign to end police brutality in Nigeria. The police special anti-robbery squad, which sparked the movement, was abolished on October 11 amidst uproar.
But Nigerians have continued their agitation, demanding investigation of decades of rights abuses and compensation for victims.
On Sunday afternoon, Segun Awosanya, a rights activist who began the campaign to rid the country of police brutality in 2017, withdrew his participation in further protests, saying those leading it are becoming increasingly dangerous with an insurrection plot being introduced to the campaign.
Mr. Awosanya quickly criticised the coalition as shifting the goal post on Sunday evening, declaring their “agenda” as “dead on arrival.”
Kindly call this what it is. This is NOT #EndSARS Movement but an LGBTQ+ and Feminist Movement. Stop impersonating & exploiting the vulnerability of Nigerians, who genuinely wants to end impunity. This agenda is dead on arrival. There is no place for insurrection in Nigeria! https://t.co/o25nXbPebh
— SEGA L'éveilleur®🚨 (@segalink) October 18, 2020
Nigeria has a law against gay marriage since 2014, but it was condemned as primitive at the time it was passed and several groups have continued to push to upturn it.
