“The true test of faith is not in how loud you pray or how many verses you memorize. It is how well you love those that are different from you.”

— Anonymous

In late October 2025, the news of Hilary’s death in Port Harcourt flooded the internet — another queer man lured, beaten, and killed by people who thought themselves righteous. His name joined a growing list of victims of what has quietly become one of the most violent forms of moral policing in modern Nigeria.

The story was as cruel as it was familiar. A young man, queer, trapped through deception, brutalised, and thrown to his death from a two-storeyed building.

His death was celebrated in dark online spaces as “cleansing.” And as with every tragedy before it, the same haunting question resurfaced: how did a society that claims to love God learn to hate so completely?

The Gospel According to Hypocrisy

Nigeria portrays itself as a deeply religious nation. We find churches and mosques on every street corner, sermons about righteousness every Sunday, and scriptures quoted with ease. Yet, it is the same nation where morality often walks hand in hand with murder.

When news broke of Hilary’s death, the online response mirrored the constant pattern of collective denial. A handful mourned, some condemned, but many justified. “God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,” one comment read. “He got what he deserved,” another wrote.

But if God loves the sinner and hates the sin, why do His “followers” keep doing the killing?

It is easy to claim morality when your version of it does not cost you anything. It is easy to preach love from the pulpit, yet remain silent when hate spills onto the streets.

What is harder is confronting the truth: many Nigerians don’t hate sin, they just hate difference. Afterall, both lying and homosexuality are sins on the same scale.

Queerness and the Fear of Difference

To be queer in Nigeria is to exist as both a moral lesson and a social crime. The law already criminalisessame-sex relationships; the streets enforce that law with fists and stones. Religion reinforces it with sermons about abomination, while culture sustains it with silence.

In the eyes of the moral majority, queerness is not just “sin”, it is a direct challenge to the social order. It exposes the fragility of the moral façade that so many cling to. When a queer person exists openly, they are not just defying tradition, they are holding up a mirror to hypocrisy.

So the response becomes violence and that is not because of divine anger, but because of human insecurity.

Hilary’s death, then, was not even about religious or moral values, it was about power. It was about people who believe they have the right to define who is human enough to live.

When Faith Forgets Love

Somewhere along the line, religion in Nigeria became less about compassion and more about control. Churches preach salvation but practice judgment. Pastors quote Leviticus but ignore the story of the adulterous woman whom Jesus saved with one line: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”

We have all sinned, some in secret, others in silence, yet queer people are treated as if their existence alone is an act of rebellion against heaven. The irony is blinding: the same people who gossip, cheat, and bribe with ease claim to be offended by who someone loves.

If faith is meant to heal, how did we turn it into a weapon? If God is love, how do His followers justify hate?

The answer lies in how religion has been culturalised, reshaped to serve the fears, not the faith, of society. Instead of drawing people closer to God, it has been used to draw lines between who deserves His grace and who doesn’t.

The Silence That Kills

Perhaps more dangerous than the hate itself is the silence that follows. Many Nigerians claim they “don’t support violence” but still remain quiet when someone is attacked.

That silence is not neutral, it is permission.

It tells the next mob that there will be no consequence. It tells the next queer victim that justice will never come.

When Hilary was killed, there were no protests, maybe a few online condemnation posts, no politicians condemning the act. The news cycle moved on as if his life was a disposable story. But every queer Nigerian watching knew the message: your life is a warning, not a right.

The Morality of Selective Compassion

What makes Nigeria’s moral panic especially cruel is its selectivity. We call for divine punishment for queer people but pray for forgiveness for corrupt leaders. We condemn two men for loving each other but celebrate youths who defraud others in the name of hustle.

We treat morality like a buffet, picking and choosing what feels convenient. But morality without empathy is just performance. It is a costume of righteousness worn by a society too scared to confront its own rot.

If God truly loves the sinner, then He must have loved Hilary too — not for what he was condemned for, but for who he was: human, fragile, deserving of grace.

Beyond Condemnation: What We Must Confront

To condemn Hilary’s murder is not to endorse queerness, it is to defend humanity.

To demand justice is not to oppose God; it is to honour Him through compassion.

The fight is not between believers and sinners, it is between love and fear.

And fear is what fuels this violence: the fear of change, the fear of freedom, the fear that God’s love might actually be bigger than our biases.

We cannot continue to hide behind verses we barely understand. The Bible also says, “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” The Qur’an speaks of God as Ar-Rahman, the Most Merciful. None of these texts justify hate.

A Prayer for the Living

Hilary’s death should not just spark outrage, it should spark introspection.

Because until Nigeria learns that sin is not a justification for slaughter, until faith stops being a weapon, and until love becomes louder than hate, more blood will stain the soil in the name of morality.

If we truly believe God loves the sinner, then it is time we start acting like it.

Because right now, we are not just killing queer people, we are killing the very faith we claim to defend.