WHAT CHIMAMANDA GOT WRONG ON THE ANTI-GAY LAW
I read with astonishment Chimamanda Adiche’s opinion on the anti-gay law from a post a friend shared on my facebook wall. “Chimamanda, chekwa ezigbo echiche,” he simply commented atop the story. I think it was a sensible reaction to the now controversial and yet shocking disposition of the literary ace on the anti-gay law that recently got a presidential sanction. Chimamanda titled her story “why can’t he just be like everyone else?” And in answering the question she named the character in her perfectly crafted short intro fiction to her controversial opinion “Sochukwuma,” only God knows! “We don’t know”. The long and short of Adiche’s view on criminalising homosexuality was carefully and technically subsumed in the short anecdotal fiction in her story. Her submission was explicit and unequivocal: “Sochukwuma” was not and could not be responsible for his sexual disorientation; he could not have chosen a lifestyle as such; it was congenital. She called it ‘benign difference.’ Cl