A senior Nigerian government official Otunba Segun Runsewe on Sunday said Idris Okuneye, popularly known as Bobrisky, is a serious “health hazard” to the country.
“The health hazard Bobrisky has is worse than Ebola Virus Disease; travellers and tourists should be careful wherever they notice the presence of Bobrisky, mostly as it affects sharing of public facilities,” Runsewe, who is the director-general of National Centre for Arts and Culture, told journalists in an interview.
Bobrisky is a Nigerian Internet personality who is known as a prominent cross-dresser in Nigeria, a country with no LGBT rights.
Runsewa’s warning comes after a report received by the Nigerian Government on how Okuneye caused a stir at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja when he used a female toilet, an act which got a woman “very upset” with the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria.
Some states in Nigeria holds more strict position against LGBT community.
In Kano State, a person of the “male gender who acts, behaves or dresses in a manner which imitates the behavioural attitude of women shall be guilty of an offence and upon conviction, be sentenced to one-year imprisonment or a fine of N10,000 or both”.
Often times, Bobrisky identifies himself as a female socially, while he is confined as a male formally, hence, he is identified as a male gender on his passport.
Runsewe said Bobrisky constitutes a serious threat to women by using public female toilet.
“Women are prone to get various types of disease from the toilet than sexual intercourse. .
“Now, Bobrisky will enter the same toilet with a woman and at the end the woman will contract some kind of diseases.
“In the first place, Bobrisky’s passport shows that he is a man. Why should he turn himself to a woman and use women’s toilets? At the end of the day, innocent Nigerian women who go to same toilet will now be infected with what they did not bargain for,” he added.