The message to the West is very clear in many African countries; keep your practices, and let us keep ours

BY MICHAEL THOMAS

Finally, some African leaders are telling the West and Europe if your so-called aid package comes with strings attached to it – strings that compromise our values and dignity – then, in that case, we will take a pass.

Deputy Speaker Thomas Tayebwa is one such Ugandan politician who has made it exceedingly clear that he is having no such thing on his watch. Tayebwa warned fellow parliamentarians about the effect of homosexuality in the country’s schools.

“I talked to one student personally and he told me in one of their schools one cannot move in the compound at night. You fear… yes, he’s from a major school, one of the prominent major schools… he told me he fears being grabbed and sodomized,” the MP explained.

“Some of your children are dying in silence, and some of the parents are also dying in silence. So, the Committee on Education, this is a matter you have to give urgent priority to. It’s an issue which we must tackle head-on, without fearing anyone.”

Tayebwa asked his parliament to stare down anyone who tries imposing homosexuality as a culture on them. “I want to warn you colleagues that this matter is not for the faint-hearted. These people have a lot of money, and they are going to target us. Some of you might be denied visas… but you must remain strong,” he said.

Africa has always been at odds with the West on this subject, but now it seems like some fractions of government in that country have caved in and this has Tayebwa furious.

The Deputy Speaker has ordered an investigation by the Minister of Internal Affairs into the Kasese District Local Government for passing a bylaw that recognizes homosexuals and those with gender dysphoria as “marginalized people.”

Tayebwa is a Christian leader who stands for the values and traditions of the elders and has a no-compromise attitude to what he sees as wrongdoing. ‘We are not yet a society that has lost the moral compass. As Africa, we believe that the institution of the family is the core of whatever we are doing.”

While speaking on behalf of his country at the African Caribbean and Pacific-European Union (ACP-EU) last year about the unnecessary addition of clauses that support the LGBT agenda and abortion in the revised Cotonou Agreement, the Ugandan Deputy Minister told them, “We are a society that is not ready for homosexuality, and we are a society that is not ready for abortion.”

It is important to note that a total of 33 African nations rejected the organization’s call for all of its members to provide “access to safe abortion” within their borders.

The message to the West is very clear in many African countries, keep your practices, and let us keep ours. Just recently Kenya enforced laws that ban the marketing and broadcasting of any movies featuring LGBT content. That country also warned ladies to avoid a Chinese birth control pill in circulation, which the country called illegal as well as dangerous.

Just about a decade ago Barack Obama threatened to cut off foreign aid to Nigeria if a recent anti-gay bill is passed, but Nigerians rejected Obama’s proposal. The bill in question would have sent guilty parties to jail for 10 to 14 years.

Back then while addressing the Nigerian press on Obama’s threat, Zakari Mohammed, a Nigerian lawmaker said, “We have a culture. We have religious beliefs, and we have a tradition. We are Black people. We are not White, and so the U.S. cannot impose its culture on us. Same-sex marriage is alien to our culture and we can never give it a chance. So, if [Western nations] withhold their aid to us, to hell with them.”

Judging from past performances of the West, when it comes to aid and Africa, it seems like a case of a different driver, but the same bus and the same destination.