‘This isn’t home for me anymore’: A decade under Nigeria’s anti-gay law
Queer Nigerians recall coming of age under a law that emboldened mobs, sanctioned police abuse, and fractured lives.
By Ernest Ifeanyi Nweke
Lagos, Nigeria — Before Anthony was a final year political science student performing masculinity the best he could to ward off bullying at a university somewhere in southeast Nigeria, he was an effeminate junior secondary school student who was expelled after school authorities caught him in a compromising position with a senior boy.
His family, refusing to accept the truth of the event, insisted he had been taken advantage of and pressured Anthony—then 11 years old—into corroborating that version of the story in order to be forgiven and readmitted into the school. They never spoke of the matter again, only alluding to it when he turned 16 and was about to go off to university. Anthony’s deeply religious mother instructed him to toughen up, to learn to say no, and to never allow anybody to take advantage of him again.
“She did not need to say anything else, but we both knew what she was talking about,” he says, recounting the moment that informed his behaviour throughout his time at university. “I always tried to act manly. Whenever I [catch] myself slipping into my fem side, either when I am walking, sitting or talking, I immediately adjust myself to a more manly position.”
Still, this didn’t protect Anthony from threats of violence when the Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act (SSMPA)—Nigeria’s anti-gay law—was passed, nor from hearing boys in his class and hostel openly boast about attacking any gay man they caught. His mother’s words and fears had already suppressed any exploration of his sexuality during his first three years in the university, but now, Anthony also felt the violent eyes of his peers on him.
“I just knew I had to be careful. I lived this way for three years, even after finishing school,” Anthony says. During this period, he kept a few friends and avoided hooking up with anyone, as he had always done before. Instead, he fell into a deep pornography and masturbation addiction. For him, the worst part of this time was the isolation. “I felt like I was alone and nobody else would understand me or what I was fighting.”
His real-life seclusion birthed a chronically online persona that eventually emboldened him to begin accepting himself. Though careful never to comment or post anything ‘incriminating,’ he spent hours poring over the social media pages of other gay Nigerians. Through these pages, Anthony started making friends, hooking up, and building a community for himself.
“What has changed—and has been most rewarding—is the inspiration, comfort and emotional stability that came with accepting myself,” he says.
David’s story
For David, his interaction with society took a different shape. In 2014, when the SSMPA was passed, he was 20 years old and just beginning senior secondary school. He was aware of his sexuality and knew about the law, but as someone who was masculine-presenting and preoccupied with schoolwork, he was rarely in spaces where people discussed it. Two years later, when he was set to enter university, he came across conversations about sex and sexuality on Facebook—exchanges that introduced him to a new community. But at first, the gay people he encountered shared stories that didn’t align with his own.
“They all blamed their sexuality on being molested as kids or some foreign influence,” he says. “I was not molested, and I also did not watch a lot of foreign movies growing up, so the narrative that it was learnt was faulty. I was just a simple guy who had liked other boys for as long as I could remember.”
David eventually stopped actively looking for community among the people he found online. But when he finally met a university student with a similar story to his, he began learning how to navigate being gay in Nigeria while slowly exploring his sexuality. He carefully chose friends and curated his own circle. Before long, he had surrounded himself with people around whom he could be himself.
Still, caution did not shield David from violent homophobia. In 2020, at an all-night party at Alpha Beach in Lagos, David and his friends were attacked around 3 a.m. by a mob that beat one of his friends so badly he nearly lost an eye. After that, the weight of what he had first felt when reading about the SSMPA years prior hit him again.
“At that point again, I felt like this isn’t home for me anymore,” David says. He studied political science for his undergraduate degree and is now pursuing a master’s degree in criminology. He had hoped to serve his country either in the military or in politics, but he knows neither path is open to him in a nation where he cannot love freely or openly. “Me not being in a place where I can function or perform to my full self just makes me know I cannot be all I want to be here,” he adds.
Keneri’s story
Keneri was a 22-year-old student at the University of Benin (UNIBEN) who was just starting to discover the joys of partying and queer congregation when the SSMPA became law. Twice a month, he would take road trips, crossing three states, to spend time with his then-boyfriend at another university. The signing of the bill abruptly cut his exploration short and forced him to become far more cautious about his sexuality.
“The signing of the SSMPA opened the floodgates of state-backed homophobia,” he says. “Before it was signed, I recall meeting people on Grindr and travelling interstate to meet up with them without fear or fervour. But once the SSMPA was signed, the number of cases of setups and kito situations skyrocketed, and everyone had to start living in fear.” [Kito is Nigerian slang for extortion of gay men by threatening to expose their sexuality to police and their families.]
What made the post-SSMPA kito pandemic particularly terrible was the structure it gained and the alliance it enjoyed with law enforcement. The kitos, who set up unsuspecting gay men, operated entire networks with police officers in their ranks. They would threaten victims by telling them they were untouchable because the police were on their side. In this atmosphere, Keneri withdrew into himself and focused on his studies.
In 2017, his relationship with his sexuality in Nigeria changed completely after he became a victim of one of these setup rings. Someone he had connected with on Facebook for over six months began blackmailing him with threats of exposure, demanding money after their first and only meet-up. Desperate to avoid scandal and protect his family name—and traumatised by the betrayal— Keneri made the payments and eventually left the country to cut off contact and begin healing. This encounter permanently altered how he related with his sexuality.
“When I am in Nigeria, my community is mostly online, I rarely ever hook up with people because I never use any of the hook-up apps,” Keneri says. “To even meet people, I began using a two-step verification where one, we must be and have mutuals on social media platforms, and two, my close friends have to know you in person.”
Beyond increasing and emboldening Nigeria’s homophobia, the signing of the SSMPA affected queer Nigerians in deep, personal ways. For many who are old enough to remember the shift—from ‘subtle homophobia’ that could still be legally contested to the state-backed variety that became the norm—the law left scars they are yet to overcome. For many of them, David’s words—“This isn’t home for me anymore”— are a sentiment they share and live with daily.
This story was first published on Minority Africa and appears here with permission.
