Podcast exposes attack on LGBTI Nigerians at hotel

Colin Stewart is a 45-year journalism veteran living in Southern…

Port Harcourt street scene (Photo by Utibe4you via Wikimedia Commons)

The No Strings podcast this week reports on an attack by robbers who invaded a birthday party attended by members of the LGBTI community on Aug. 7 at a hotel in Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

Logo of the No Strings podcast

The events are described in the latest No Strings podcast, titled “How LGBTIQ community members were trapped, … robbed and almost killed in Port Harcourt city, Nigeria.”

The No Strings podcasts provide a voice for the LGBTIQ community in Nigeria.

The latest episode describes and conducts interviews related to the events of Aug. 7 at Annabeth’s Hotels & Club in Port Harcourt. Podcast host Mike Daemon recounts:

“After some few hours at the hotel, some very strange faces trooped in and shut down the environment and then unleashed horror on this innocent young people who were just only having a party. NOSTRINGS captured everything, including the actual stories told by the victims themselves and even recorded a session with the manager of the hotel as he denied everything and even threatened to arrest Mike Daemon for even coming to the scene.”

In the podcast, which can be streamed or downloaded here, discussion of the events begins at 1:30. Daemon states:

Overview of Port Harcourt, Nigeria (Photo by Kalabarian via Wikimedia Commons)

Hotel staff decided that dancers at the party were homosexuals, based on their dance moves, so the staff called some friends who were “hoodlums and criminals” to come to the party. Those men beat the party-goers and almost killed some of them, using knives and machetes.

“It was horrible. There was blood everywhere,” Daemon says. “They were surrounded by these criminals, who threatened them with the 14-year [prison sentence of the] anti-gay law and to call in police.”

Some party-goers escaped by jumping from the top of the hotel. Some party-goers hid in toilets and elsewhere in the hotel, but the criminals tracked them down and robbed them.

Samuel, a party-goer, tells Daemon (from 3:20 to 7:15 of the podcast):

“We saw strange faces. … I was wondering, I didn’t know what was happening. … There was fighting. … Every one of the workers there was against us. … The ones who came to fight were not invited.”
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Victor, an event organizer who made the birthday cake for the party, states (from 7:30 through 10:18):

“There were some invaders who tried to cause a scene. … People were running, jumping out of the stairs. The gates were locked. People were robbed of their properties, their money, their phones, their wallets, and the celebrant was seized or held back to pay for the damages. … Most of the guests were injured.”

A manager of the hotel is also interviewed on the podcast (starting at about 10:30). He claims that the supposed party was a ploy by robbers to enter the hotel and rob guests. When he called police, they escaped and damaged hotel property in the process. He says no one came from outside the hotel to attack party-goers there.

For this and future podcasts, visit the No Strings podcast website.