Why Nigeria continues to shame itself

This Tuesday, The Nigerian Senate has approved the passage of a law that would prohibit same-sex marriage, gay advocacy groups, & public displays of same-sex affection.


This law is clearly draconian & a violation of human rights but most Nigerians would not see that way. According to Nigeria's information for sexual & reproductive rights , an abysmal 1.4 % felt tolerant of sexual minorities. Those results wouldn't be hard to come by in several other African countries. Two-thirds have already criminalized homosexuality.


Nigerian newspaper This Day stated "“Homosexual and lesbian practices are considered offensive to public  morality in Nigeria. The… bill is crucial to our national development because it seeks to protect the traditional family, which is the fundamental unit of society, especially in our country,”“It will be difficult to import practices and lifestyles which are alien to our country and the majority of our people.”
A couple things I'm getting from this:
1. Locking up gay people will somehow advance your country. (It won't!)
2. Just allowing a group to exist will threaten another group's existence.
3. The minority should suffer at the will of the majority.

I mean really! Can they be that bigoted & ignorant? You only have to go to Nigerian blogs & see this type of garbage repeated again  & again in the comment section.
"Homosexuality is not in our culture no matter how civilised u want to sound" (more if you're masochistic)
Since when does cultural values mean you can take people's rights away?  It also doesn't help that this type of homophobia wasn't an Nigerian thing.
As Nigerian Blogger Chude Jideonwo points out  " people still declare with ignorance that "homosexuality is not a part of our culture", conveniently skimming over historical evidence of the practice in the East and North of the country; and blissfully unaware that the origins of homophobia in our societies can only be traced to the influx of foreign religions."

 But that won't change the views of  many. Nigeria is still a country where gay people are very afraid to come out & where violence & intimidation is socially sanctioned. We can hope that the rest of Africa (& the World) will take serious action to protect the rights of LGBT citizens. The international community and NGOs also have a role in pressuring countries to quit violating precious human rights.