“There is no hiding place for gay people in Nigeria”
After being lynched by six anti-gay vigilantes in 2007, Nigerian asylum seeker Abraham says that he will be killed if he’s made to return to his home country. Currently living in Sunderland, Abraham is trying to claim asylum in Britain, and is still waiting to hear from the Home Office about his living status.
He told Chronicle Live that he had been attacked on social media by people in Nigeria since his sexuality became known. Abraham has specifically chosen not to share his surname publicly, because he fears it will put his family at home in “grave danger.” He is father to three children, whom he had to leave behind after his wife divorced him.
Originally from Lagos, Abraham’s boyfriend died of HIV before he fled to Britain in 2008. He told the paper that “there is no hiding place for gay people in Nigeria – the attacks are coming from all angles.”
Abraham explained that he originally applied to stay in the UK in 2013, but his application is still pending: “The authorities are suspicious because I have three children in Nigeria and because I did not claim asylum as soon as I entered Britain.”
He also told the paper that the recent reforms made to same-sex marriage laws in Western society has had a negative effect in Nigeria: “The result is that in Nigeria conspiracy theories have developed saying that the West wants to infest Africa with a gay mentality.”
Words Alice Freeman
Taken From GayTimes.Co.Uk
