1 Introduction

The search for social acceptance and integration without the deprecatory accentuation of their ‘difference’ remains at the heart of queer advocacies on the African continent. This is because not only are people of alternative sexualities ostracised by insensitive legislations, they also encounter overt discrimination and repression; experience family rejections; are perennially extorted; and, are oftentimes violently attacked and killed extra-judicially by state agents and a homophobic public (Inmaculada and Isabel 2021; Maine 2022; Onanuga and Alade 2020). Their existence on the fringes also makes them susceptible to medical health and psychological challenges (Ayhan 2020; Elk 2021; Handlovsky 2018). Owing to these, they constantly consider, and oftentimes are forced to renegotiate, their identities, humanity and consequently, their existence. Because many African societies deny the existence of non-heteronormative identities and sexualities (Wahab 2016; Montle 2021) discriminatory practices persist and are perpetuated by moral, cultural and religious narratives which are in turn appropriated by political actors in the demonization of people of queer sexual orientations. Within this context, in Nigeria, 2014 represents a critical moment as the government criminalised same-sex relationships through the Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition Act) while also prescribing jail terms for persons adjudged to be complicit in non-heterosexual practices. The law states that:

a person who enters into a same sex marriage contract or civil union commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a term of 14 years imprisonment; a person who registers, operates or participates in gay clubs, societies and organisation, or directly or indirectly makes public show of same sex amorous relationship in Nigeria commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a term of 10 years imprisonment; a person or group of persons who administers, witnesses, abets or aids the solemnisation of a same sex marriage or civil union, or supports the registration, operation and sustenance of gay clubs, societies, organisations, processions or meetings in Nigeria commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a term of 10 years imprisonment.

Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act 2013, art.5

This regulation has invigorated a throng of homophobic moralists and anti-queer advocates, while also ensuring that most members of the Nigerian homosexual community have gone underground out of fear of attacks, homophobic violence and systemic discrimination. For many however, negotiating their daily existence within this highly toxic Nigerian community constitutes physical and mental persecution, with refuge in new foreign homes becoming means of escape. There are, of course, documented occurrences of such tortuous ‘escapes’, with names like Bisi Alimi, Edafe Okporo, Romeo Oriogun, Dapo Adaralegbe, Obi Chibuihe, readily coming to mind. While advocacies for the rights of people in same-sex relationships continue to gain traction particularly on digital platforms in Nigeria (Onanuga 2020), the Nigerian history of rich literary writings has ensured that members of this oft-maligned community engage issues on their sexuality through creative writings and literary compositions.

The exploration of such contemporary representations and realities in African literary writing is expedient since the writings are revelatory ‘through its engagement with the concept of globalizations while simultaneously becoming globalized’ (Mabanckou and Thomas 2011, 2). Through such literary advocacies, authors attempt a depiction of an inclusive and non-discriminatory society; they also signal their hope and register the lived realities of these marginalised and minoritised communities of people. Indeed, many studies on Nigerian literary productions with focus on their representation of the queer community are in existence and, through these studies, scholars have foregrounded the reasons for as well as the implications of homophobia in Nigeria (Ajibade 2013; Green-Simms 2016; Nwokeabia 2014). They also draw attention to the place of language in these ‘othering’ discourses (Adebola 2019; Onanuga 2022; Onanuga and Schmied 2022). The current article however extends the preoccupation of these earlier studies as it critically examines the constructs of home and transnational mobilities in the pursuit of refuge and safety in selected Nigerian homosexual narratives. In our interrogation of the depictions and counterbalances evoked by the juxtaposition of the artistic motifs of ‘home’ versus migration, we argue that this dichotomy is wielded firstly as a form of escape from a judgemental ‘home’ and then as a means of providing a contrastive engagement of the perception of homosexuality within different territorial borders. Such transnational enactments of mobilities further constitute platforms though which these authors channel energies and support on the way to soliciting acknowledgement and acceptance for people of alternative sexualities, particularly those trapped in homophobic spaces. Of course, we understand the contentions that underlie the framing of queerness between the African space and the West. These contentions are fraught with nuanced socio-political, religious and cultural positioning, especially as nation states and their institutions almost consistently weaponise ideological disparities in creating ‘otherness’. Hoad (2007) places emphasis on the material and symbolic inequalities immanent in extending Western perspectives of sexuality onto the African space, especially as the African-ness of what are regarded as non-normative sexual identities is not in dispute. Spronk and Nyeck (2021) foreground the subjectivities that emanate from an African perspective to queerness. Like Macharia (2016), they envision a conversation of African queerness, one which emphasises agentic representation and provides essentiality to the framing of being queer in Africa, since the attachment of theoretical labels to living experiences that are unfixed and unstable is almost futile. With these in mind, we engage how queer characters in Nigerian fictional narratives experience the dynamics of queerness in their home country and project these in their quest for escape into spaces regarded as queer safe havens.

This exploration is achieved through the study of three purposively selected Nigerian texts – Jude Dibia’s Walking with Shadows (2005), Chimamanda Adichie’s “The Shivering” (2010) and Uzodinma Iweala’s Speak No Evil (2018). The primary selection criteria are that they are fictive works on homosexuality; and that they engage the tripodal issues of homosexuality, home and migration, which are central to the present study. The questions which we answer relate to: How is language used to depict the realities and experiences on homosexuals? How do these writers represent and contrast these experiences in the home versus abroad dichotomy? What are the implications of the dichotomy in the future of queer visibility and agency in Nigeria, nay Africa? What is essential in this context is that, beyond the fixation on the roles of nation states in formulating legal instruments and physical boundaries that foment ideologies of inclusion-exclusion, queer individuals also add their voices and framing to the projection of what home and/or migration connote. However, before embarking on providing answers to the foregoing questions, we first lay a foundation for our discussions through the engagement of the key words to the study.

2 Home, Migration and Transnationality in Literature

Migration has been an existential reality across ages and times with human beings. However, with the attainment of nationhood and the creation of artificial human borders to designate communal spaces, the challenge of migration continues to be on the front burner of issues confronting contemporary societies. Migration involves the movement of people from one country to another and this has been the focus of discussion in several scholarly writings from diverse perspectives. In interrogating the disposing factors to migration, Dustmann and Weiss (2007, 2) avers that throughout human history, “economic motives for migration, and motives related to natural disaster or persecution (…) are the two main reasons why individuals migrate.” They further specify that migration may be temporary or permanent. Ajima (2015) corroborates this and further identifies specifically that Africans migrate because of ‘socio-economic issues such as political discontent, wars, the quest for economic empowerment and so on … environmental factors such as drought, flood, famine, volcanic eruptions … spiritual and other diverse reasons.’ What these studies however ignore is the current surge of migratory trends as a result of persecution because of gender identities and sexual orientation. In fact, to Alawode (2015), the experiences of dehumanisation – which homophobia and queerphobia represent – and attempts to escape from its capricious grasp lie at the centre of the recent waves of migration from the African continent.

The idea of migration is intricately interwoven with that of the ‘home’. McLeod (2000) approaches the conception of home from the psychological convenience which it provides. Therefore, “to be ‘at home’ is to occupy a location where we are welcome, where we can be with people very much like ourselves” (McLeod 2000, 210). In addition, home is used to index origins and place of belonging. Within the context of origin, home is reduced to a static or rigid idea since it remarks a specific location. Indeed, it may thus be given cultural, ethnic or even nationalistic leaning. Further to the foregoing, home has been represented as a mental construction, one which is fluid. This implies that home is not a fixed location. It is where one has emotional attachment and where there lies a sense of belonging. Within the context of migration and migrancy, Brah (1997, 192) avers that ‘home is a mythic place of desire in the diasporic imagination.’ There, they enjoy security and shelter and do not have to be conscious of their ‘difference’ in their new spaces or homes. The sense of non-belonging and disconnection which accompanies being in the diaspora leads to an idealisation of the ‘home’ – their home country – leading them to conceive their new spaces as temporary abodes. In applying this viewpoint to queer narratives, the conceptualisation is turned on its head. For African queer communities, the home becomes a memorialisation of repression and discrimination while the diaspora becomes a refuge – a locational escape from the inhibitions and restrictions which their former homes enforce on them. Consequently, home becomes “a place of no-return, even if it is possible to visit the geographical territory that is seen as the place of ‘origin’ ” (Brah 1997, 192). This fluidity of ‘home’ and the nuances which go into its adoption places a heavy responsibility on individuals who identify with various locations for diverse reasons. It also places into context the reason why scholars and writers have consistently attempted interrogating this sociological concept as well as its relationship to identity formation.

Unsurprisingly therefore, many contemporary African literary writings continue to manifest and explore the ramifications of the twin concepts of home and migration (Adesanmi and Dunton 2008, ix). This is however not a new motif in African creative writings. Early African writings presented migration as circuitous, a journey necessitated by the colonial yearning to be educated abroad but with the urge to return home in order to contribute to their fledgling nation-states. Soon afterwards however, with crippling economies, failed leaderships, mismanaged institutions, civil unrest and the emergence of despotic military administrations, the narratives of migration in post-colonial African literature, as Kaboré (2016, 3) identifies, presented African migrants as victims fleeing from poverty or war. Migration therefore became a “tactical retreat” for those for whom it had become too unbearable or dangerous to remain in Africa (Adeeko 2008, 15). These representations and depictions have not relented. Reflecting the contemporary society where migration continues to surge, the writings reflect the concerns, motivating reasons as well as the resultant effects of migratory tendencies on the African continent. With regard to the choice of location for Nigerian writers, Adeeko (2008,11) remarks that the United States of America features prominently in these novels as a provider of narrative closure.

Although migrants seek refuge for several reasons, França (2017) states that since 2002, sexual orientation and gender identity have become officially recognised as genuine reasons why migrants may seek to emigrate and seek refugee status elsewhere. For many of these migrants, migration lies between being alive and being killed. This is because their survival is tied to a struggle of identities and agency – both of which they are denied in their home countries. To tease the multiple representations which emanate from the narratives around the lived realities of migrant queer people, attention has been placed on the role of language in encoding and documenting their experiences. Murray (2014, 1) acknowledges this when he asserts that linguistic practices are central to the understanding queer migration studies, particularly ‘how language shapes and is shaped by queer people’s movements across borders and to better recognise the centrality of language in the creation, maintenance and disruption of borders pertaining to belonging, difference, desire, identity and nation-state.’ Attwood, Ryan-Flood and Kong (2013, 765) also underscored academic enquiries on the intersection of minoritised ‘sexualities and exile, in the journeys of refugees, nomads and migrants, and in diaspora’. They aver that these forms of enquiries will help in documenting the experiences and realities of such marginalized communities. Lewis and Naples (2014, 912) further explore how ‘sexuality, in relation to hierarchies of race, class, gender, and nation structures processes of international migration and border-crossing’. Research on queer migration has shown that narratives on African LGBTQ refugees are indicative of desperation and helplessness (Zomorodi 2016; Munyarukumbuzi, Jjuuko and Mathatwa. 2022). Andrikopoulous (2023) noted that due to the violence of the state and how the states’ policies on migration dwell on inclusion and exclusion, West African migrants attempt to navigate Europe’s hostile immigration practices by creating forms of kinship and sociality. The complexities of the outcome of these practices, according to him, become too much to comprehend or control. Navigating borders as queer becomes hinged on proving queerness as sexuality and not as a form of identity, and this could be seen in instances like the European legal framework and immigration practices. Although stating openness to queer asylum seekers, Europe ironically makes transnational mobility difficult for queer people as they have to prove their queerness and show evidence of violence threat(s) to life to the government and immigration authorities. An echoing observation from these studies is their interrogation and deconstruction of how national norms and values are instrumentally weaponised in the marginalisation of and discrimination against sexual minorities by social and political actors. The inhibiting realities within these hostile national borders therefore often result in and motivate the migrant tendencies which mean that queer migrants seek out more embracing contexts (foreign cultural environments) as these afford them a sense of belonging. The realisation of this and the depiction of this reality motivates the focus of the present study. Although the authors whose works are discussed in this study now reside abroad, they still deliberately engage with Nigerian issues, relay their experiences while in Nigeria and provide diverse perspectives on properly understanding the realities in the Nigerian space.

3 Homosexuality and Queer Literature in Nigeria

Same-sex sexual acts continue to be a taboo subject in Nigeria and many people consider sexual orientation as a “choice” that reflects a “sexual perversion” or even motivated by “economic incentive” (Nyavi 2018). This is why Nigeria is regarded as one of the most homophobic countries in the world (Lamontagne et al. 2018). Although the law prescribes 14 years as jail term for people who engage in homosexual practices thus certifying the injustice against LGBTQ persons, on the street, being gay is a death sentence. Indeed, the Nigerian news media are replete with reports of homophobic violence either by state or non-state actors. An instance is the killing of Olubunmi Akinnifesi in Ondo State¹ and a BBC Africa’s recent documentary records different violent actions against queer people in Nigeria.² Beyond the incrimination of queer-visibility which the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act (SSMPA) of 2014 represents, the opposition to queer visibility and agency has festered because of the religious, moral and political undercurrents which are weaponised in depicting queerness as an abhorrent non-normative identity. This has culminated in queer narratives in the public usually containing extremely pejorative content regarding same-sex relations and identities. These usually also have denigrating references to queer-identifying individuals while queer sexual desires are criminalised since they are equated with paedophilia and prostitution. Indeed, the state and religious institutions almost consistently seek, and often achieve, the obliteration of homosexuality and other forms of queerness from public view. Even recently, the legislative arm of the Nigerian government considered strengthening the legal encumbrances when they considered legislating against any form of transvestitism. Little wonder then that until recently, most literary writings from Nigeria or by Nigerian authors have been silent on and avoided the topic of queerness.

The first Nigerian novel with a homosexual as the central character is Jude Dibia’s Walking with Shadows. Expectedly, it drew significant controversy within the country, forcing the author to relocate from Nigeria for safety considerations. Since Dibia’s bold and daring documentation of homosexual realities in Nigeria, other writers have contributed robustly to the documentation of the Nigerian homosexual and queer experiences in their fictive writings. These outputs have enjoyed significant and widespread acclaim. Some of these are Chris Abani’s GraceLand, Unoma Azuah’s Edible Bones, Chinelo Okparanta’s Happiness, Like Water and Under the Udala Trees, Joe Okonkwo’s Jazz Moon, Arinze Ifeakandu’s God’s Children Are Little Broken Things, Chike Frankie Edozien’s Lives of Great Men, and Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater. Other genres of literature have waded in too with Romeo Oriogun’s poetry especially reflecting the homosexual lived experiences. What is interesting is that despite having to run away from Nigeria to the US following his winning the Brunel International African Poetry Prize, Oriogun was recently awarded the NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature for his collection Nomad in 2022 where it was adjudged that “the 67 poems in the collection were held together by a travel motif, marshalled in each poem with equal intensity.”³ Could his winning indicate a gradual change in perception especially as this represents a shattering of canon? For instance, Nwaubani (2017) identifies a positive shift in attitude towards acceptance of queer-identifying Nigerians and their access to public services like healthcare and education. Films further constitute another platform from which queer advocacies are done with Nollywood taking up the challenge. Supporting casts have also been provided by Non-Government Organisations like TIERS which have also lent their voices through filmic renditions. The representations of the violence and discrimination homosexuals face in fictional narratives have been explored by a number of scholars. Green-Simms provides a nuanced yet strident insight. This is through her examination of the depiction of homosexuality in Nigerian novels in the 21st century and the ways homophobia, fears, desires, pleasure and anxieties of homosexuals are presented by three writers. She notes that 21st century writers on homosexuality resist dominant discourses differently from what obtains before. For Green-Simms, this change in narrative is the case because “the increased criminalization of homosexuality has compelled both young writers and more established third generation writers to insist on telling their own stories of love and suffering and to do so in a public and visible way that provides levels of detail and intimacy previously unseen” (2016, 144). Green-Simms submits that “[a]frican writers are not only allowing for the possibility of same-sex love and identity, they are also showing it to be multifaceted, tragic and hopeful, violent and nurturing, and undeniably real” (2016, 157).

Despite this commendable progress, the negativity that surrounds queer sexualities is based on the perception that coats it as a threat to the natural order of society and traditional, patriarchal family values. This is often exacerbated by perceptions of pressure of Western queer activism as well as Western governmental interventions which are deemed to be in form of donations or aids if there is queer-acceptance. This unfortunately has motivated homophobia and queer invisibility in many cases. What one identifies in more recent interventions is the centring of discourses around human rights. However, in the face of sustained aggressions and rejections as well as arbitrary attacks and detention due to their sexual orientation or gender identity, many queer-identifying Nigerians flee their countries in search of asylum in Europe and other western countries.

4 Texts and Contexts: A Synoptic Review of Jude Dibia’s Walking with Shadows, Chimamanda Adichie’s “The Shivering,” and Iweala’s Speak No Evil

The above-mentioned books constitute the texts and contexts of the analysis of the present study. Jude Dibia’s Walking with Shadows is about Adrian’s failed attempt at heterosexuality and eventual acceptance of his sexuality as homosexual. Because of his experiences as a young boy, he changes his sexuality from a homosexual so as to be accepted by his family and to prove his masculinity. His rechristening also becomes a way to alter his ‘difference’. He subsequently changes his name in order to conform to societal expectations. He also gets marries and has a child. Unfortunately, the world which Adrian built for himself crashes when his wife is told of his homosexual past. The traumatic experiences he undergoes after his forced outing makes him realise that things will not change for him if he remains in Nigeria. He thus flees his homeland for the UK, hopeful for a new beginning.

Chimamanda Adichie’s “The Shivering,” a short story, characterises two Nigerians in the United States who are united by tragic news from Nigeria. Ukamaka welcomes her neighbour, Chinedu, who she thinks is a student in Princeton, into her home and the two of them forge a friendship that might not have been possible had they been in Nigeria. Adichie narrates a story about the loneliness faced by Nigerians in the diaspora. The connective experience is enriched by narratives around religious zealousness, the importance of friendship and trust and the lived realities of queer and illegal Nigerian migrants in the United States.

The third text is Uzodinma Iweala’s Speak No Evil. This narrates the story of a teenage boy, Niru and the complexities surrounding his coming out. Niru lives with his conservative Nigerian immigrant parents in Washington D.C. and after a failed seduction by his best friend, Meredith, he realises that he needs to embrace his sexuality as a homosexual. His friend Meredith who is white is more open about issues on sexuality and helps him get a date with a boy. His parents discover that their boy is a homosexual and he is sent to Nigeria to be spiritually cleansed of the evil spirit in him. This incidence sends him back to the closet and his same-sex relationship with Damien, an African-American, is guarded from his parents. Iweala’s novel raises questions on sexuality, homophobia from Africans in the diaspora, and the politics of being in or out of the closet. Speak No Evil also provokes readers to think about the plight of a teenager who is in a sexual identity crisis and the trauma of a child trapped between two cultures and who is sexually repressed on the one hand, and the emotional crisis of a parent who loves his child, who is proud of his accomplishments in academics and sports, but who finds it difficult to understand the sexual choice of the child, on the other.

5 Dissecting the Texts: The Trauma of Home and the Lived Experiences of the Nigerian Homosexual

A growing literature, describing political attacks on the rights of LGBT persons across the African continent, especially Nigeria, links politicized homophobia to political or economic crises (McKay and Angotti 2016; Pierce 2016; Akande, Adejare and Fasuyi 2021; Judge 2021; Winkler 2021). Politicization refers to the process by which a social phenomenon becomes the basis of mobilization by societal and political actors, who turn it into an issue of major political significance, as a subject of heated public argument, mobilization, and conflict (Amusan, Saka and Muinat 2019). A common argument is that homosexuals are targeted as a group by incumbent politicians to divert attention away from pressing issues of corruption, economic decline or development challenges. The mobilization of latent homophobia is a strategy employed by political actors to divert attention when a regime’s fate is at stake – in elections, due to public opposition, or internal power struggles (Klinken and Chitando 2016).

This politicized homophobia positions people of queer identities and sexualities for different forms of degradation, violence and threats to life (Alichie 2022). Apart from the role of the government in politicising homophobia, homosexuals face discrimination from families, friends, and co-workers. This group and other members of the general public, form the normative structure and moral police that enforces heteronormativity. Both the government and this normative group heavily rely on the argument that homosexuality is foreign to Africa and religion is the platform used to speak against alternative sexualities and unions (Adebanjo 2015). As a result, in queer fictional narratives, we have works that reflect how homosexual characters battle with and suffer from conservative heterosexuals because of what and who the society expects them to be. In Dibia’s Walking with Shadows, Adrian is forced out of the closet by an aggrieved co-worker and his life changes completely. Though this forced outing is necessary for Adrian to be truly free (Onanuga 2022), the loss of his heterosexual marriage and the violence of exorcism are the major aftermaths of this vengeful act. In Iweala’s Speak No Evil, Niru’s father, stuck in his Nigeria past, refuses to accept his son’s homosexuality. He becomes a force that threatens Niru’s expectedly safe space as a homosexual in America. In Adichie’s “The Shivering,” Ukamaka “… said, because she thought he expected her to show surprise, “Oh, you’re gay”.” (Adichie 2010, 178). Her action here is premised on their shared history of sexual and gender norms as Nigerians, and for Chinedu to smile and look relieved (Adichie 2010, 178) after his declaration, shows the complexities of coming out by Nigerian queer fellow Nigerians, outside the shores of their homeland as they expect homophobia and discrimination.

Adichie and Dibia’s works show the difficulty in sustaining homosexual relationships in Nigeria. Adrian and Chinedu in their same sex relationships had to deal with the cultural expectations of masculinity as regards heterosexuality. Chinedu’s lover openly double dates and marries a woman while expecting to Chinedu to continue with their relationship, albeit secretly. Adichie’s lovers are different in what they want and it is clear that Abidemi, Chinedu’s lover is self-centred, craves social acceptance and prioritise the performance of heterosexuality over his relationship with his male lover. However, Chinedu wants an exclusive relationship that is ready to subvert heteronormativity. This difference in their approach to societal expectations, leads to a break in their relationship. Adrian on the other hand “… had always known that there was no chance that Nigeria would evolve to allow same-sex unions so finding a long-term partner could be emotionally risky” (Dibia 2005, 198) and though he suffers betrayal from his Spanish lover, Antonio, Adrian had to revisit and change his sexual orientation as a result of the hostility against same sex relationships in Nigeria and the apparent failure that attends such relations.

The dynamics of sexuality and Christianity in Nigeria can be found in the studied texts as Nigeria becomes a site for exorcism for homosexuals in Dibia and Iweala’s works. Nigerian Christians in a bid to rid homosexuals of the evil they believe homosexuality represents and change sexualities, perform deliverance sessions which could be violent beatings or exhausting prayer sessions. In Iweala’s Speak No Evil, Nigeria becomes synonymous with “spiritual revival” and Niru’s father upon discovering his son’s gender and sexual presentation, threatens “[n]o, you are going back to Nigeria. I will personally escort you to Holy Spirit Chapel or Mountain of Fire or whichever one so we can burn this sinful nonsense from your body” (Iweala 2018, 32). He comes through with his threats and Niru is taken to Nigeria for deliverance and while Adrian’s geographical placement is in close proximity to the site of religious interventions, Niru is brought back to Nigeria. Iweala highlights Nigerians’ perception of the difference between the cultural and religious makings of Nigeria and America through Niru’s father quest to change his son’s sexuality. Reverend Olumide, the Nigerian Pastor in America recommends Bishop Okereke, a Nigerian Pastor resident in Nigeria for the job of deliverance as they reason that the “… demon of homosexuality has become so entrenched in America that you can’t really fight it there … this is a place where the faith is strong and hasn’t been infiltrated by the devil” (Iweala 2018, 72). The belief that homosexuality is foreign to Africa and the spirit behind queer sexualities is resident in the West is explored here. Nigeria is regarded by these characters as a space where deviants can perform heterosexuality through acts of interventions like exorcism and spiritual cleansing. This manifestation of cultural and religious belief is present in Dibia’s Walking with Shadows, where Adrian is forced to go through exorcism so as to cure him of same sex desires. Like Niru, Adrian is robbed of the choice to decide the need for an intervention. As he drifts in and out of consciousness, Adrian hears “[b]anish the devil from your heart … and accept God in your life” (Dibia 2005, 175). The idea that homosexuality is evil, and heterosexuality is good encourages Nigeria Christians go into spiritual warfare against the devil that resides in homosexuals. This makes it increasingly difficult for them to undo heteronormativity and accept gender and sexual presentations outside the binary.

It is evident that the driving force behind queer migration in Nigeria is homophobia and the attendant violent acts of homophobia. Realising that he cannot survive in Nigeria as a homosexual, Adrian reflects “… Nigeria is not tolerant of my kind, and I want to work and live in a place where I won’t have to deny my sexuality. If I’m asked, ‘Are you gay?’ I want to answer truthfully, ‘Yes I am.’ If I remain here, I will always be a victim. I will always have to worry about what the next person is thinking about me or that I may lose my job at any time or not get the necessary recognition I deserve at work.” (Dibia 2005, 192). Readers get to know of Adrian’s decision to move to the U.K. in his discussion with Ada, after the exorcism session organised by his brother, Chiedu and Pastor Mathew. Though Adrian’s move is open-ended and inconclusive, readers are given a glimpse into the life that awaits him. Adrian might face other problems like racism, but he will be able to navigate his public and private spaces without the fear of discrimination or violence.

6 Refuge Is beyond Home: Migration and Transnational Homosexual Realities

The making of global bodies, influenced by universality and inclusiveness is evident in Adichie’s “The Shivering.” Chinedu finds it relatively easy to come out to Ukamaka, a fellow Nigerian immigrant, about his sexual orientation after crossing the physical and cultural boundaries of Nigeria. It is significant to note how the two characters approach the coming out of Chinedu. Adichie places the two characters in a position where Ukamaka on the one hand did not expect heterosexuality from Chinedu, though she had thought “idly of starting an affair with him,” and Chinedu on the other hand did not disclose his sexual preference till Ukamaka asked about his love life. They had entered a silent companionship as strangers away from home, concerned about comforting one another at the wake of disturbing news from Nigeria. Adichie’s Pentecostal homosexual character comes out to his heterosexual female character who “had known instinctively, perhaps from the very beginning” about her new friend’s sexual preference but remains silent about it till he comes out by himself to her. She is interested about his love story and Chinedu narrates his experiences with Abidemi, his bisexual lover and how he needed to end the relationship. Adichie gives Chinedu the opportunity to revisit the hurts he faced in his gay relationship in Nigeria where his lover’s marriage to a woman is inevitable and had remained “unspoken and understood” (Adichie 2010, 179). Abidemi “… a banker, a Big Man’s son who had gone to university in England” (Adichie 2010, 178) is expected to perform heteronormativity and is ready to keep Chinedu as a secret lover. From the foregoing, Chinedu, a Nigerian Pentecostal adherent, known for praying in a manner that causes Ukamaka to shiver, involuntarily, is made to come out freely in America, a world where differences are accepted and Ukamaka’s acculturation and open mindedness is evident.

It can be deduced from the above that writings on queer migration in Nigeria place emphasis on the importance of Nigerians in the diaspora especially documented Nigerians to be allies and not enemies of Nigerians who are undocumented. Chinedu is an undocumented migrant, initially shies away from friendship but after opening up to Ukamaka about his sexuality, he is able to confide about his status. Disclosing his undocumented status after coming out is a huge step for Chinedu who before his friendship with Ukamaka had suffered loneliness and was afraid of deportation. He exemplifies illegal migrants who feel safer hiding as illegal migrants in America and who decide to risk deportation to going back to Nigeria. Chinedu is aware that he opens himself to criminalisation and though he is ineligible to access basic facilities like accommodation and getting good jobs, he knows that going back to Nigeria means risking his life and safety as a homosexual. Adichie characterises Ukamaka as the documented heterosexual Nigerian who gives Chinedu the needed help and support. To Chinedu’s continued expression of fear of deportation, Ukamaka says “ “You are not going to be deported, Chinedu. We will find a way. We will” ” (Adichie 2010, 185). Her words of support shown by her use of the pronoun “we” comes towards the ending of the story and readers are optimistic that Chinedu, through the support of Ukamaka, will be one of the Nigerian queer migrants to challenge the migrant policies on queer asylum and stay back in America. However, in Iweala’s Speak No Evil, Niru, the teenage homosexual protagonist is alone, he suffers loneliness and rejection after his family discovers his sexuality. His father for instance finds it difficult to accept his son’s difference especially as he is still caught in his past, a homophobic Nigerian living in a multicultural world but unaffected by the changing world he lives in. Niru’s best friend Meredith, a white girl expects him to enter a heterosexual relationship with her and at a point, Niru confesses “I can’t take it anymore, it’s crushing me, it’s too confusing for me to live all these lives when I only want one” (Iweala 2018, 156). The lack of emotional support from the people in his life leaves a Black queer boy, alone in America, struggling on his own to subvert heteronormativity.

While Adichie’s fiction dwells on the plights of Chinedu, an illegal queer migrant, Iweala’s Speak No Evil touches on what it means to be queer and Black, queer and Nigerian in America as a teenager and the two works underscore the precarious situations Black migrants struggle with in the UK and US. As a minority within minorities, Niru finds it difficult to reconcile with the complexities of his identity as a homosexual from a Nigerian family in America and this struggle is cut short as he becomes a victim of racial discrimination and police brutality. Iweala’s preoccupation with the realities of a Nigerian American homosexual teenager who is killed because he is identified as a Black and is assumed to be a heterosexual, calls attention to the conversations and debates on Black Lives Matter. Niru’s murder, though not hinged on his identity as gay, reveals the additional challenges that Black queer people go through in Western spaces. He indeed can be perceived as being subjected to the double jeopardy of being Black and queer – two minority identities. Judith Butler on why some lives are subaltern and suffering than the rest says “[i]t is true that all lives matter, but it is equally true that not all lives are understood to matter which is precisely why it is important to name the lives that have not mattered, and are struggling to matter in the way they deserve.”⁴ Butler here speaks about racial killings in the United States and the failure of the government to prosecute the killers. The quotation speaks directly to the conditions of marginalisation and minoritisation that encourages and justifies the killings of Black people in the US. Indeed, Niru is killed because he was suspected to be harassing a white woman. He is thus ironically a victim of racism and police violence. After he is killed Meredith reflects, “… he never would have done that. He didn’t like girls like that.” (Iweala 2018, 184). Niru becomes a victim of racism and while explaining the reason for killing Niru to a journalist, the police officer insists:

I saw what I saw. I saw a man attacking a young woman and I took appropriate action. She says, actually, this is a boy we are talking about, a teenager, a Harvard-bound black boy. She says, witnesses saw her run after him, that he left the venue before her. He says, I saw a young woman being assaulted and I intervened to stop it using what the department has deemed appropriate force.

Iweala 2018, 188

The above dialogue which is between the journalist and the police officer shows how vulnerable Black migrants are to violence and it is obvious that the West is not a safe space for Niru as his conservative and homophobic family rejects him and he eventually suffers racism and police violence.

To navigate the complexities of unequal social relations, speaking back and challenging the system becomes inevitable. Niru had wished that he could challenge his family to accept him as he is but he feels that being Black limits him, “[s]ometimes I stare at the family that owns me and I wish I were a different person, with white skin and the ability to tell my mother and my father, especially my father, to fuck off without consequence” (Iweala 2018, 116). He realises that his marginalization is increased because he is Black as a result, he equates being white to having the agency to challenge the existing authority in his life. This approach to subverting authority shows that Niru still has a long way to go in accepting himself for who he truly is, as the impacts of white supremacist ideologies have made him detest a part of himself, in his quest to embrace his sexuality.

Dibia’s novel also engages how African migrant subjects strive to survive the harsh realities of the West while also combating racial discrimination and threats to life in Europe. Through George, readers get to know how Nigerians “have had to put up with the cold of Europe, learn the awful language and make countless sacrifices” (Dibia 2005, 156). The implications of being Black in Germany and struggle with unequal power relations is also evident when George confesses that:

[n]o matter what I do, I will never be an equal in Germany. There are still places I can’t go with Johan or we may be attacked … I was just telling Femi how much prejudice and racism I still have to face in Europe. It’s amazing that no matter how established an African man is, he remains a second-class citizen. I carry an EU passport now but I’m still detained by immigration when I travel.

Dibia 156–157

The above excerpt invites the readers to see how important discussions on the politics of exclusion are important to queer migrant writers as it shows how Nigerians find it difficult to navigate the dual world of identities of being Black and Queer in the diaspora (Marnell, Oliveira and Khan 2021; Jabr 2021; Held 2022). Dibia’s character becomes dislocated and suffers racial exclusion. This movement from sexual exclusion in Nigeria to racial exclusion in Europe places queer migrants in an endless search for acceptance. The attendant disillusionment and the (im)possibilities of navigating sexual discrimination and racism in Africa and the West are conversations central to Dibia, Adichie and Iweala’s works and as important as this discussion is, the three writers could not proffer any solution to this overarching concern. While Dibia discusses the plight of George and leaves Adrian’s story open-ended, Adichie gives Chinedu the gift of friendship and his problem unresolved while Iweala’s homosexual character is killed.

The nostalgia for the homeland and the question of coming back home to Nigeria is also raised in Dibia’s novel. Echoing the voice of many queer Nigerians, George explains that he will return to his birthland, Nigeria if:

We’ll have a good government and a workable democracy where the people’s voice actually does matter. I imagine tarred roads, streetlights, good hospitals, constant electricity, religious tolerance and a sense of equality despite sexual orientation or sex for that matter.

Dibia 2005, 158

Such expectations of and from African nation states could be the solution to the problems Nigerian queer migrants face as staying back in an environment where they are accepted for the totality of their personality, not excluded for one identity while rejected for the other, would have been the ideal space as against transnational spaces.

What is identifiable across the texts where the characters are dislocated from their Nigerian roots is the ideological representation of the West being synonymous with choice and freedom of movement. Even for Niru and the parents, America is a queer-enabling space within which they are unable to subject their child to the inhumane practices which are possible in Nigeria. Thus, to rid him of his queer tendencies, the boy is sent to Nigeria. Nigeria is therefore painted as a primitive and backward space where queer agency is denied. For those characters who move to the U.S. as well as other western countries, their new locations become spaces where they encounter and engage with new ideas in western education and culture, ideas that, in turn, can either empower or disempower them in their ability to engage with issues back home. Consequently, a lot of queer activism and advocacies are from citizens abroad. There was a huge outcry by the Nigerian community abroad as well as from international organisations when Nigeria began considering legislating against same-sex relations. Indeed, the then US president, Barack Obama, and the UK prime minister, David Cameron waded in the issue to try to discourage the signing of the bill into law. The same situation played out in Uganda where ‘the “Kill the Gays Bill”-saga received enormous international attention, from the moment David Bahati tabled the Anti-Homosexuality Act in Parliament in 2009, as a private member’s bill, proposing the death penalty for homosexuality’ (Gloppen and Rakner 2019, 3). Some of these dynamics feed into the paranoia of homophobia on the African continent as Western-rooted advocacies are perceived as neo-imperialist agitations seeking to foist foreign behaviours.

These constructs which superimpose the contrast between the home, on the African continent, and the diaspora, are in tandem with Puar’s (2013, 25) observation that ‘lesbian and gay liberal rights discourses produce narratives of progress and modernity’ in the Western hemisphere and these tropes are used in the denigration of the Global South. The result is a creation of moral hierarchies vis-à-vis national, racial and religious Others. The consequence is the positive representation which is subsequently accorded to the foreign cultural environment and a chastisement and wish for the home to ‘progress’ towards the foreign ideals. This reversal of fortunes manifests in the enactment of ‘home’ in the texts, and the realisations negate the conceptualisations in established literatures. Home, normally, is a domain of comfort which evokes feelings of nostalgia during exilic experiences. However, for these queer-identifying persons, home is toxic and limiting, and they are forced to constantly assert ‘a haunting claim for equal rights of membership in a spectacularly unequal global society’ (Ferguson 2006, 174) even in their new homes as migrants. Indeed, they become caught in a web, a ‘global link between colony and metropolis’ (Bhabha 2004, 304) – a reality which follows the queer migrant who oscillates between hope and depression and the possibilities of overcoming.

7 Conclusion

Migration and its affective implications on the lived realities of Nigerian queers as represented in the selected texts have been explored in this study. This has poignantly been remarked through the provision of the contextual happenings in Nigeria as well as through the engagement of the oppositional frames of ‘home’ and ‘exile/migrant’. A recurring identification in the texts is the modes of providing visibility to the lived experiences of Nigerian queer migrant. These are illustrated in the different ways through which Nigerian homosexuals try to escape their immediate past; construct a better present; and, negotiate a more accepting future. Thus, while migration is not altogether desired, it becomes a leeway to escape to more queer-liberating spaces, even though these also come with their challenges. Within these constructs, agency is critical – the home (Nigeria) restricts the agency of these individuals while exile liberates and empowers them to be true to their identities. The contentions between the ‘home’ and ‘exile’ is however often in a flux as there is a recognition that the West is also fraught with its own challenges while the ‘home’ contends with the framing of queer activism as a neo-imperialist project. More engagingly, and in the absence of a resolution, the three writers, through their narratives, call attention to the need for continued conversations on the realities that make leaving Nigeria compulsory, the struggles after leaving, and what the future likely portends for Nigerian queer migrants.