MORE OF THE WAYS 2019 HAS GIVEN US LIFE

Sequel to ALL THE WAYS 2019 HAS GIVEN US LIFE, we continue with our catalogue of notable events in this soon-to-end year that had us sitting up and transferring our noses from our business to notice.

The (Nigerian) Police Is (Not) Your Friend

2019 was strewn with several narratives of the Nigerian Police proving beyond every reasonable doubt that they are not here to protect and serve. Oh no. the men (and women) of the uniform serve only one person: themselves. This is especially true for us gay people, as the Lagos Police PRO, Dolapo Badmus, in January, so generously reminded us (in case we’d forgotten) that Nigeria is not the place for us as “homosexually-inclined” people.

“If you are in homosexual in nature,” this upstanding woman of the Police Force stated categorically on social media, “leave the country or face prosecution.”

Last we checked though, they weren’t handing out visas and the means for us to relocate though. Dolapo, speaking for the rest of the police, simply wants us to pack and leave. Talk about OYO being our case.

If you however thought that this uniformed abuse of human rights is strictly the gay Nigerian’s portion, then you’re not paying proper attention.

In November, a woman named Nasiba Dauda, attained internet notoriety when she came out to proclaim herself and her family victims of the most indecent police harassment ever. According to her, the inspector-general of police, Mohammed Adamu, would not let her be a divorced woman in peace, as her spiteful ex-husband was using the most powerful man in the police force as muscle to bully her and her family.

And you know the kicker? The woman heavily implies that her very homosexual ex-husband and the IGP are shtupping each other.

*gasp* Don’t look at me. Below are her words in social media black and white.

 Music That Gave Us Life

2019 was a very great year for music lovers. From our Lord God Beyoncé releasing her epic Homecoming Netflix documentary and accompanying live album, and then another accompanying album to the hugely successful remake of The Lion King, to Rihanna consistently doing us “the more you look, the less you see” when it comes to our persistent requests for her new music, 2019 enriched us with music.

And music videos too for proper visuals. For who can forget the empowering visuals Todrick Hall gave us when he and his legion of dancers sashayed onto our screens to the “get off your ass and strut your stuff” beat of Nails, Hair, Hips, Heels.

Or the time Taylor Swift gave us a clapback gay anthem in the nature of You Need To Calm Down, making it so that we had other ways to shut down noisy homophobes who won’t face their front.

Or the very sexy stylings of Young KSB who explicitly rapped about all the ways gay sex gives us pleasure in his aptly-titled Slob On My Ass music video. Knowing that this music exists was enough to keep us good gay men perpetually turned on in 2019.

Rest In Peace

In May, both the literary world and LGBT community were rocked with the saddest news: Kenyan author and LGBT advocate, Binyavanga Wainaina, had passed away. He was one of the good ones, a man who used his international celebrity to focus LGBT issues, using his own life as a gay man.

Even now that the year is about to end, we continue to say: “Rest in peace, Binyavanga. We trust that Rainbow Jesus is keeping you in good company up there in Gay Heaven.”

In other uplifting news, in September, Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe also died. Yeah, 2019 wasn’t about to give us only sad news when it comes to the obituaries.

Nigeria’s Rape Culture

For the greater part of this year, the rape culture in Nigeria commanded our attention and conversations about it took center stage. It reached a fever pitch when the wife of singer Timi Dakolo, Busola Dakolo came out in June to publicly talk about the rape she suffered when she was a teenager in the hands of the infamous pastor of the Commonwealth of Zion Assembly (COZA) – Biodun Fatoyinbo. The same man who promised – and never gave us – a robust response the last time he made the news for sexually assaulting another woman.

Busola’s narrative swept through the country like an Ebola fever, stoking emotions and refocusing the topic of men being scum, the culture of silence surrounding rape in Nigeria, and justice for the victim.

And just as we were getting complacent in our conversations regarding this scandal, BBC journalist, Kiki Mordi, dropped a bomb on us: the Sex For Grades video exposure of the predatory men who stalk the halls of our universities. Of course, we all knew that disgusting men like this exist in the powerful positions of our universities, men who exert their influence to make young women victims of their unwelcome sexual desires. But to be confronted so visually by this, through Mordi’s brilliant investigative journalism, was something we were not ready for in 2019.

What all of this established to us in this year is that Nigeria is a rapist country, and no amount of the religiosity we are famed for will cover up this ugly truth.

The Lagos non-Pride

In the year of our Lord 2019, Nigeria FINALLY got its first pride event!!!

And it happened right in the city that never sleeps: Lagos!

Oh wait, that didn’t happen. But notable LGBT activist, Bisi Alimi would have liked for us to believe it did. As he so ceremoniously announced to the world on his social media in November.

Yes, such a significant event happened in this country – and the way everyone got to know about it was through a social media announcement that it had already happened.

And we’re here still wondering: does Bisi Alimi actually know what it means for a community to host a pride event? We’re hoping he has since gotten an education from the swift backlash that followed his pathetic move to further install himself in the Nigerian LGBT hall of fame.

Other Scandals We Were Just Not Understanding

We woke up to Beyoncé’s internet in November to the viral news that heterosexual women were doing the most to entrap the men whose hearts they were after, by exchanging the stew in their rice-and-stew with period blood.

Yes. All over social media, women were confessing and men were recoiling in horror.

And gay men were raising their glasses to toast homosexuality and all the ways it has made us foolproof to the Machiavellian devices of the heterosexual woman.

Before I wrap up this post, I would like to however observe a moment of silence for the way 2019 epically fucked me up by making this the year that the love of my life, Idris Elba, got married to a woman! There has been sorrow. ?There has been crying. ?? And there has been gnashing of teeth. ??? 

Idris, this could have been us. But you are instead wasting your life with a woman.

Written by Pink Panther