You will have heard a zillion times from your family members how demonic it is to be gay.

Your initial problems will stem from your family.

The police will not be after you, looking for inappropriate attitudes to confirm their suspicions. You should be familiar with our country’s fourteen-year law to lock up gays. So I decided to write to you on how to stay safe as a gay Nigerian. The silence, or laughter, from the audience gave approval to that kind of bigoted thinking. I was so irritated I had to leave because nobody called him out. I couldn’t even wait to hear his short story. I had to confirm what he had said by asking him to repeat himself, which he did in clearer terms. Last Sunday, at a weekly literary gathering in Kaduna, a bearded dark macho guy openly said, smiling with a perfect row of white teeth, “I am homophobic, so writing this story was very difficult for me” as if he expected the audience to give him a standing ovation.