Homophobia in Nigeria Has Many Faces

I like lesbians not gays

My biggest problem with being gay in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, is being faced with different types of fear daily. For gay people here, when you lay down at night to sleep, you praise whosoever you worship or serve for just having survived that day.

There is always that feeling of insecurity among your family, friends, and loved ones. Some show you the love you need to feel accepted, but they still have trouble facing the reality that we don't love differently. They try to sound very woke, but at the slightest chance, you hear them spilling shit.

I have come to understand a lot from my conversations with Nigerians who claim to accept LGBTQ rights. Most of them have a preference for some labels but dislike others, which they sometimes publicly acknowledge. They still feel they aren't homophobic even as they talk trash about the parts of the community they don't like.

Not long ago, I was swimming in these thoughts when I got a notification on my tiny crappy android gadget. I rushed to check what could be going on and learned I had been tagged on Facebook.

Oops!

I don't enjoy being tagged on a Facebook post that throws shade on my sexuality. I get unusual chills, and if you wonder why, it’s because my country enacted the harsh anti-gay law SSMPA in 2013.

When I looked at the post, I wasn't comfortable with it. I had to decide whether to ignore it, remove the tag, or drop a piece of my mind. I had to remember that every decision has consequences. Here’s the post that upset me:

Those were the words of the man who tagged me, and the reaction he got from his “awesome and smart” Facebook friends appalled me. I wasn't completely surprised by what I saw from them, but one comment really worked me up.

We LGBTQ people were created the same way that commenter was created, and even though people have tried to eradicate us over the years, we are not going anywhere, not now, not ever.

The thing about Nigerians is that most don’t even know what the whites/Europeans brought to Africa, but everyone feels they are right when they talk about colonialism, especially concerning LGBTQ+ rights. The most bizarre myth of the century is and will always remain homosexuality is un-African.

I was contemplating how to bash his wrong and foolish assertion against my community, but I decided to hear more from my friend (N). I read the post out to him and this was his reply:

I smiled at him but lost it on the inside where he couldn’t see. Don’t judge me, I am still in the closet.

I don’t want to bore you with history, but the African continent once had a flourishing LGBTQ community. The whites took that away from us by imposing harsh laws against homosexuals, and the remnants of those laws still haunt us today.

In my opinion, I think my friend feels he isn’t homophobic because lesbians are preferable to gay people, or maybe that’s his way of looking for an excuse for being homophobic.

My friend is just one of millions of Nigerians who use abusive and homophobic remarks every day without feeling any guilt.

But a dislike for gay people is homophobic; there is not a single place where you like a part of a thing and hate the other part and you feel vindicated. It's inappropriate for a member of the LGBTQ community to feel another spectrum is lesser compared to him or his own. Lastly, being a member of the LGBTQ community doesn't exclude us from being homophobic. We should take care with our own comments and actions.

Last month was pride month, and the last thing I want to hear is someone still lodging hatred to a fellow human being because of his sexual orientation, because of deciding to love.

Lots of people define terms and alter some words and claim they don’t mean to harm anyone, because they didn’t point and shoot a gun at them or stone them. I say they are doing harm whether they realize it or not.

To my fellow LGBTQ+ Nigerians, I say let’s continue to let love lead.

Related posts:

We all want to be happy. Happiness, on the other hand, is sometimes thought of as something that happens to us and over which we have no control. It's simple to equate happiness with joy. Our…

Combinations of strategies may offer better opportunities. We can combine indicators together or patterns together. In this article, we will see how to use the Normalized Index with a touch of moving…

Dillon is a senior on the Roman Catholic High School soccer and he became a starter up top for the Cahillites shortly after his freshman year started. That season ended in the most perfect way…