By BENJAMIN OMOIKE
The House of Representatives has received a bill seeking to prohibit crossdressing in Nigeria.
The bill, sponsored by a member, Muda Lawal Umar, passed its first reading on Tuesday.
Though the objectives of the bill will only be debated at the second reading, our correspondent obtained a copy of the proposal after it was introduced.
The legislation is titled, ‘A Bill for an Act to Amend Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act 2013 to Prohibit Cross Dressing; and for Related Matters.’
The bill particularly seeks to amend Section 4 of the Act by inserting a new Sub-clause 3 that reads, “(1) Crossdressing whether done publicly prohibited.
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“(2) A person shall be deemed to have committed the offence publicly where it is published or displayed publicly notwithstanding that it was committed privately or in any place that would have ordinarily been described as private.
“Provided that this section of this Act shall not apply to crossdressing in the course of a stage play or in any bona fide public entertainment.”
The bill also seeks to amend Section 5 of the Act by inserting a new Sub-clause 4 that reads, “A person engaged in cross-dressing is guilty of an offence and liable to imprisonment for six (6) months or to a fine of five hundred thousand naira (N500,000).
The bill further seeks an amendment to Section 7 of the Act by introducing the word ‘cross dressing’ and defining it as “…the practice of wearing clothes usually worn by a person of the opposite sex.”
Notable among cross-dressers in Nigeria are popular television host, Adenrele Oluwafemi Edun, widely known as Denrele; suspected transgender woman, Olanrewaju Idris Okuneye, popularly known as Bobrisky; Port Harcourt-based crossdresser, Daniel Anthony, aka Jay boogie and James Chukwueze Obialor, aka James Brown.
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