IANA Blog- June 2024

 Blog

Happy June,

Also, Happy Juneteenth and Happy Pride Month. 

Similar to how I did my February Blog with Black History Month in 2022 and my March blog with Women’s History Month for last year, I figured I’d do something for Pride Month. I wanted to take some time to focus on some famous LGBTQ Nigerians. I also thought about doing this, because back in 2017, I helped make a short documentary that focused on Black masculinity from the POV of two straight black men, a straight black woman, a gay black man and a transgendered black man.

Not all of the people I focus on are Delta/Anioma, but I think it’s still right to recognize them.

Bisi Alimi

Bisi Alimi, born Ademola Iyandade Ojo Kazeem Alimi, is a British Nigerian gay rights activist, public speaker, and blog writer. He gained attention for being the first Nigerian to come out on television. Alimi was born and raised in Lagos, to Idiatu Alake Alimi, a university clerk and Raski Ipaedola Balogun Alimi, a police officer. After graduating from Eko Boys High School in 1993, he went to major in theater at the University of Lagos. He attracted a lot of attention on campus after the university’s magazine, Campus Lifestyle outed him as gay. He unfortunately received discrimination and also faced being disciplined due to him being gay, but he was still able to graduate. He would later receive a master’s degree in Global Governance and Public Policy from Birkbeck, University of London in 2011.

Alimi began advocating for gay rights in the late 90s due to his friends dying from AIDS. In 2002, he joined Alliance Rights Nigeria (ARN) as Program Director, providing health services and support for people with HIV and AIDS. During his time with ARN, he developed the Nigerian MSM HIV prevention framework in 2004.  In 2005, he co-founded the Independent Project (aka The Initiative for Equal Rights) as Executive Director. It was also around this time, in 2004, he became a gay rights activist, led several protests in Nigeria and he gained notoriety when he became the first gay man to appear on TV in Nigeria. He appeared on Funmi Iyanda’s talk show, New Dawn with Funmi, and revealed that he was diagnosed with HIV. With his appearance on TV, his family and friends disowned him. His appearance on TV also led to the Anti-Same Sex bill being presented in 2006.

Alimi later left Nigeria in 2007 due to death threats and was granted asylum in the UK in 2008. He has been living in the UK ever since, specifically London, and was granted British citizenship in 2014. He has been continuing to advocate for gay rights within African migrant communities. He has also worked in organizations like Naz Project London, Michael Bell Research and Consultancy and HIV i-Base. Alimi has also advocated against racial prejudice in the UK. He also founded the Bisi Alimi Foundation in 2015, which was created in response to the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act in 2013, and to promote rights for everyone in Nigeria, regardless of sexuality or gender identity.

Alimi is also a recipient and nominee for many awards including being listed multiple times on the “Independent on Sunday” Pink List of influential LGBT people in Britain, and being honored on the Gay UK LGBT 2014 Honor List on New Year's Day, for his work in education within the LGBT community.

Richard Akuson

Richard Akuson is a lawyer, writer, LGBT rights activist and founder of A Nasty Boy magazine, Nigeria’s first LGBTQ publication. He was born in Akwanga and raised in an upper-middle-class family. His mother is a college lecturer and his father is a politician. He attended Shepherd’s International College, then headed to Nasarawa State University, where he obtained his professional law degree. He passed the Nigerian bar as a Barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria in 2017, upon his graduation from Nigerian Law School in Lagos.

Before Akuson started his law career, he became a style intern at 18 years old and co-founded, ILLUDED, an online photo-sharing platform. In 2016, he was offered the position to head the fashion and style sections for the Nigerian fashion website BellaNaija, which launched his career. His work earned him an Abryanz Style & Fashion Award nomination for Fashion Writer of the Year. In 2017, Akuson launched A Nasty Boy, the publication that pushed LGBT boundaries and gained international acclaim.

In 2018, Akuson left Nigeria after surviving a brutal homophobic attack and sought asylum in the US. In 2019, he wrote an essay for CNN detailing the circumstances that forced him to leave Nigeria, then wrote another essay for The New York Times, called That is Quite Gay, which was published on NY Times’ front page. In the U.S. He continues to speak about his attack and the constant homophobia in Nigeria and has done interviews for OkayAfrica, Very Good Light and The Black Youth Project and continues to advocate for LGBTQ communities and asylums across America.

Temmie Ovwasa

Temmie Ovwasa, also known as YBNL Princess, is a Nigerian R&B singer. Ovwasa is openly lesbian and identifies as nonbinary. Ovwasa was born in Ilorin. Their father is from Delta State and their mother is from Osun State. They started singing at age 8, when they wrote their first song and were part of their church choir. They started playing the guitar when they were 12. After graduating from Dalex Royal College (Secondary School) in Ilorin, they went to Ladoke Akintola University of Technology to study Medical Anatomy.

In 2015, Afrobeats star, Olamide reached out to Ovwasa via Instagram and signed them to his YBNL Nation record label, which earned them the nickname “YBNL Princess.” In 2020, they released the first openly queer album in Nigeria. Later in 2020, they would leave YBNL Nation, due to disagreements with the label boss. Ovwasa also admits that coming out has affected their career negatively as it was considered “career suicide,” which may have caused them to be blacklisted. 

Even with coming out affecting their career, they still continue to make music. In 2024, they released their fourth album, Ajiobo: the Art of Ruining your Reputation.

Adejoke Tugbiyele

Adejoke Tugbiyele is a Nigerian-American visual artist and activist. She is known for being a sculptor, performer and filmmaker, but has also worked in painting, drawing and textiles. Her work deals with issues of human rights, queer rights and women’s rights. Tugbiyele also identifies as queer.

Tugbiyele was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She did move to Lagos with her family during her childhood, but moved back to New York City to attend the High School of Art and Design. Tugbiyele attended the New Jersey Institute of Technology and received a Bachelor of Science degree in Architecture. She would then attend Maryland Institute College of Art and received her Master of Fine Arts degree.

Tugbiyele’s work has been influenced by many artists including Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui, South African artist Zanele Muholi and legendary Nigerian artists Fela Kuti and Rotimi Fani-Kayode. Her work has been featured in various public museum collections such as the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland.

Tugbiyele has also been part of many organizations such as the Nigerian NGO Initiative for Equal Rights, which provides emergency assistance for LGBT Nigerians, and the US-based Solidarity Alliance for Human Rights, which is a coalition of Nigerian organizations working for human rights, queer rights, and fighting against HIV/AIDS. She currently lives in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

Chika

Jane Chika Oranika, also known as Chika, is a Nigerian-American hip hop artist, who was born and raised in Montgomery, Alabama, USA. Chika is the youngest of three daughters and is of Igbo descent, was raised in the Pentecostal faith and is bisexual. She addresses her sexuality in many of her songs. The music video for her song “I Can’t Explain It,” is a parody of the legendary African-American sitcom A Different World, but with a queer twist on it.

Chika attended Booker T. Washington Magnet High School in Montgomery, Alabama and she developed a love for slam poetry. She was accepted into the prestigious Berklee College of Music, but would attend the University of South Alabama instead. She would later drop out to focus on her music career.

Chika gained recognition online via Instagram, where she would make freestyle raps on certain issues such as Pride month or the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. She also released an independent LP in 2017. In 2018, she released a freestyle over Kanye West’s legendary song, “Jesus Walks,” where she critiqued Kanye’s support of Donald Trump as US President. This freestyle caught the attention of other celebrities such as actress Jada Pinkett Smith and singer Erykah Badu. (Chika - A Letter to Kanye Omari West)

In 2019, she signed with Warner Records, Inc. where she also released her debut single, “No Squares.” She would also perform her song “Richie v. Alabama,” on the US talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live. The song talks about Alabama’s controversial abortion bill and was also named after one of Chika’s friends. In 2020, she released her EP Industry Games and was also featured on XXL Magazine’s Freshman Class list and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best New Artist. In 2023, she released her debut studio album, Samson: The Album, which was met with high praise from music publications and critics.

Chika is also open about her struggles with depression and mental health and her battle with bipolar II disorder. She shared her mental health struggles in a 2023 interview from Rolling Stone magazine, around the same time her album was released.

Rotimi Fani-Kayode

Rotimi Fani-Kayode was a British Nigerian photographer, whose main work explored sexuality, race and culture. He was born in Lagos to politician and aristocrat Chief Remi Fani-Kayode and Adia Fani-Kayode. He and his family moved to Brighton, England in 1966, because of the Nigerian Civil War. 

Rotimi went to multiple boarding schools in Brighton, before moving to the USA in 1976. He attended Georgetown University and received a BA in Fine Arts and Economics, and continued on to get his MFA in Fine Arts & Photography at Pratt Institute in New York City. While in New York, he formed a friendship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, who was also an influence on his work.

As mentioned, the majority of Rotimi’s work explored race, sexuality and culture, along with his Yoruba upbringing and his homosexuality. His parents were devotees of the Ifa religion and his religious experiences helped with his work, especially with “Bronze Head (1987)” and “Sonponnoi (1987)”, which is based on one of the most powerful orishas in the Yoruba pantheon. He especially referenced Esu, a deity that is usually characterized with a hard d**k. Rotimi would engrave a hard d**k in his work in many of his images to describe his sexuality. His identity helped influence his work, especially since he was always seen as an outsider. He challenged the invisibility of African queerness and the denial of other African sexualities in both the West and in Africa, and also reshaped sexuality and gender in his photography. He also provocatively approached the issue of non-representation of African artists, by addressing black bodies.

Rotimi returned to the UK in 1983, where he became a member of the Brixton Artists Collective. He started to exhibit his work in 1984. His work has been exhibited in the US, the UK, France, Austria, Italy, Sweden, Germany, South Africa and Nigeria. In 1988, Rotimi and other photographers co-founded the Association of Black Photographers, aka the Autograph ABP and an active member of the Black Audio Film Collective. 

He continued to work until his death in 1989 from a heart attack due to complications from AIDS. At the time of his death, he was living with his partner and collaborator Alex Hirst. Rotimi’s work became more well known after his death, and he continues to be an influence for Black photographers in the late 1980s and 1990s. 

There it is, some famous LGBTQ Nigerians to honor and celebrate for Pride month. I salute these along with the LGBTQ Nigerians out there representing themselves and continuing the fight for their rights, especially inside and outside Nigeria. I always tell myself “You think homophobia in America or the Black communities is bad…then look at homophobia in Africa…especially Nigeria.” We got to do better. The fact that Nigeria and other African countries are creating laws to ban LGBTQ people, instead of banning these colonizers that stay messing up Africa…is so stupid. This isn’t the Wizard of Oz… this isn’t a fantasy world…there are Nigerians…and other Africans that are gay, lesbian, queer, etc., and they have every right to exist.