‘I do not believe we should fight the government physically, but we should challenge them legally, we have to sensitise the masses’.

In this episode we speak to Ify (He/Him) a gay man from Nigeria. Ify discusses the barriers and resistance within Nigeria surrounding sexual and gender minorities as well as his own personal story. Ify talks about how he wants to go back one day to Nigeria to help sexual and gender minorities within his community and to challenge the government with the issues surrounding this. Read below to hear more about him:

‘In Nigeria we do not call it LGBTQ we call it homosexuals; we normally hide our sexuality because the LGBTQ community are suffering. The LGBTQ community there are being imprisoned, raped, beaten, and sometimes killed. The religious ideology in Nigeria plays a big role in discriminating against us and people say god did not condemn us to live like this. There are no safe zones, there is no way out we must hide everything we do, we may meet in hotels, but we have to be careful people do not call the authorities. Therefore, I want to challenge the government back home and make a platform for the LGBTQ community. However, people already working underground to help to LGBTQ community must be careful as it is against the law. Because of terrible experiences and when my mother suspected I was gay but knew after I was attacked and told me I can’t continue living like this because she was scared for me, so I left Nigeria in 2011. Although I will go back some day because I want to make a difference in my home country so people can live freely’