The Nigerian Senate should be commended for criminalising same-sex marriage in Nigeria. Of a special note is the statement credited to the Senate President, Senator David Mark, when he reportedly called the bluff of some developed nations who are trying to meddle in our internal affairs on the account of their grants to Nigeria. According to Mark, if such countries are not comfortable with our criminalising same sex-marriage in Nigeria, and they want to tie their aid or grants to it, they may keep their grants. On this same occasion of Germanys Ambassadors visit, the senate president further remarked that Nigeria as a nation should also be in a position to be giving out grants and not to continue to be a receiver provided we have been able to manage our affairs properly, maybe tackling corruption more effectively and reducing wastages in the running of government at federal, state and local levels. For so long, these developed nations have been dictating to us on how to run our economy. Now they want to dictate to us on how to run our lives against our cultural and religious beliefs. If care is not taken, these developed countries may soon legalise incestuous relationships/marriages among siblings of same parents and father-daughter and mother/son relationships. And in the name of promoting so-called human rights, such countries may give their blessing if their citizens want to marry their domestic animals i.e. dogs, horses and gorillas. These are things that some people do in secret because of their pervert hearts. The Senate and its able leadership should be commended on this occasion and encouraged to speedily pass other bills that have direct impact on the social and economic well-being of the nation such as the Petroleum Industry Bill.This unnecessary foreign interference bothers on our sovereignty as an independent nation. Fifty-one years after independence, these foreign powers still want to drag us into an era of neo-colonialism. Their efforts at meddling in our internal affairs of law-making show that their so-called aids/grants are not free after all or directed towards human development. There are strings of control that are attached to them which our Senate is trying to resist. And we hope The Presidency will co-operate with the National Assembly in this laudable venture.I also commend the Senate for its findings and recommendations made to Mr. President on the recent Bureau of Public Enterprises probe. The recent public hearing into the controversial proposed fuel subsidy removal is also commendable. It appears like Nigerians are beginning to see value for the legislators jumbo pay even though some of us still believe that the allowances can be further slashed down to reflect the extant realities of our national economy. It should be noted that the Senate has taken some positive steps in this direction but the Executive and the Judiciary arms have yet to reciprocate this good gesture by reducing their own allowances. Before her return to government, the Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonji-Iweala, frowned on a situation where the recurrent expenditure exceeds the capital expenditure. But since she came on board, the status-quo still remains the same in our national budget.However, on the same-sex marriage act passed by our National Assembly, we hope President Goodluck Jonathan will not fall to the cheap blackmail of the USA and Canada. In fact, we expect him to put his assent as soon as possible in the national interest. He is advised to give the same attention to other bills or recommendations that are pending on his table and those that may still be passed to him for the good governance of Nigeria.Once again, we congratulate and give kudos to the lawmakers and their leadership for taking this bold step and standing their ground in the passage of the same-sex marriage bill.Oluwagbemiga Olakunle, JP, General Secretary, For: National Prayer Movement, gbemigaolakunle@yahoo.co.uk.
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