Spiritual police have arrested 25 young people accused of organising a gay wedding in socially conservative northern Nigeria, authorities stated Sunday.
The sharia police, referred to as the Hisbah, stormed an occasion centre in Kano, the most important metropolis within the predominantly Muslim area, the place the alleged wedding ceremony was anticipated to happen, appearing on a tip-off from residents, officers stated.
Eighteen males and 7 girls, all of their early 20s — together with the pair believed to be getting married — have been taken into custody, stated Mujaheed Abubakar, deputy head of the Hisbah.
He instructed reporters that one man was “planning to tie the knot with one other younger man on the scene of the unlawful meeting”, and that an investigation searching for prosecutions can be carried out.
Sharia, the Islamic legislation code, based mostly on the teachings of the Koran, runs parallel to state and federal justice programs in 12 northern Nigerian states.
Beneath the native interpretation of it homosexuality is punishable by demise, though the sentence has by no means been enforced.
In 2014 Nigeria handed new federal laws outlawing same-sex marriages and the promotion of civil unions. Anybody breaking the legislation can resist 14 years in jail.
The Hisbah has arrested dozens of individuals through the years at alleged homosexual weddings, together with in 2022, 2018, 2015 and 2007, however nobody has but been convicted.
Earlier in October, the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) has formally rejected the authority of the Church of England following the appointment of Bishop Sarah Mullally as Archbishop of Canterbury, citing considerations over her help for same-sex marriage and her place as the primary lady to carry the workplace.
In an announcement issued by the Primate, the Most Reverend Henry Ndukuba, the Church described the announcement on Friday, 3 October 2025, as “devastating” and “insensitive,” arguing that it disregards the convictions of a majority of Anglicans globally.
“This election is a double jeopardy. First, it disregards the conviction of nearly all of Anglicans, who can not settle for feminine headship within the episcopate; and second, it’s extra disturbing that Bishop Sarah Mullally is a powerful supporter of same-sex marriage,” the assertion stated.
The Church of Nigeria recalled Bishop Mullally’s feedback following the Church of England’s 2023 vote to approve blessings for same-sex {couples}, during which she described the choice as “a second of hope.” The Nigerian Church argued that such positions exacerbate present divisions inside the Anglican Communion, which have continued for over twenty years.
“It stays to be seen how the identical particular person hopes to fix the already torn cloth of the Anglican Communion by the contentious same-sex marriage, which has precipitated monumental disaster throughout the Communion,” the assertion stated.
College students protest
On November 15, 2023, some college students took to the streets of Jos, the Plateau State capital, in protest towards the proposed treaty on legalisation of Lesbianism, Homosexual marriage, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) in Nigeria.
The protesters stated the treaty is an abomination, and subsequently unacceptable to the nation’s two main religions.
In response to them, if endorsed, the treaty might destroy their future.
Talking in the course of the protest, an educationist, Dr Ekaette Ettang, suggested the Federal Authorities and different heads of Africa-Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) States to not signal the European Union and Africa-Caribbean and Pacific international locations (EU-ACP) treaty, which proposed legalisation of homosexual marriage in Nigeria.
Ettang argued that ought to Nigerian authorities give its consent, residents shall be pressured to practise lesbianism, homosexual marriage and different perverse sexual acts.
