“We Will Never Stop Fighting.” Pamela Adie Says After Dismissal Of Her Suit To Register Lesbian Association In Nigeria By Federal High Court

LGBT rights activist and co-founder of The Equality Hub, Pamela Adie has emerged to declare her unwavering determination to fight Nigeria’s homophobia through the judicial system, in the wake of her suit to register a lesbian organisation getting dismissed by the Federal High Court.

Justice Nnamdi Dimgba, of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Friday 16th November, dismissed the suit seeking to legalize the formation of a Lesbian Association in Nigeria. The case was filed by Pamela Adie against Corporate Affairs Commission.

In October 2017, Adie, had founded the organisation, Lesbian Equality and Empowerment Initiatives, whose objective was primarily to advocate for the rights of same sex sexual orientation people. In a quest to register the association, she applied to the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) through her solicitor, Fajenyo Kayode for the reservation of the name “Lesbian Equality and Empowerment Initiatives”. CAC declined to approve the proposed name on the ground that it was misleading and contrary to public policy.

Through her lawyer Mike Enahoro-Ebah, Adie petitioned, albeit unsuccessfully, the Registrar General of the commission to rescind its earlier decision rejecting the name. Based on CAC’s refusal to approve the proposed name, Adie applied to the Court for redress, where Justice Dimgba dismissed the suit.

The court held that in so far as the Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act is still very much operative in Nigeria and has not been repealed, the right to form same sex unions and associations is prohibited and CAC is right to have rejected the application for being in contravention of public policy and morality.

Pamela Adie thereafter came on twitter to assure everyone whose interests are vested in her fight for equality that the battle is far from over.

“We will never stop fighting to see that we have a country where everyone enjoys the same rights regardless of who we love or how we identify,” she tweeted.