When hospitals turn queer Nigerians away, these health workers step in

Image Description: A man with slumped shoulders carries a dark, shadowy mass on his back shaped like faint, whispering faces. He stands before a healthcare worker whose outstretched hands emit a warm golden light.

Animashaun Azeez will never forget the night in 2021 when police stormed his home just after midnight. Community members had reported him for allegedly turning his house into a safe space where queer Nigerians could discreetly access HIV test kits, collect condoms, and, at times, meet one another.

“I was taken to their station and had to call some lawyers and other activists to come and rescue me,” he said. “My house is a drop-in centre for queer people who maybe were not able to come to the facility where I work to pick up their medication and because of homophobia towards queer people, the community wanted it shut down.” 

Azeez’s experience reflects a wider and often overlooked consequence of Nigeria’s homophobia: the targeting of healthcare workers and non-profits that provide essential services for queer people, especially men who have sex with men (MSM).

Pew Research Center data show that 99.5% of Nigerians identify as religious—either Christian or Muslim—and many interpret queerness as sinful or incompatible with cultural norms. In such a deeply religious society, these moral convictions often spill into public life, leaving LGBTQ+ people vulnerable to stigma, violence and, in many cases, persecution sanctioned by the state. The 2014 Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act intensified this hostility. 

Beyond banning same-sex marriage and unions—punishable by up to 14 years in prison—the law criminalises what it calls the “public show of same-sex amorous relationship.”  In many northern states where Islamic law is practised, same-sex relationships attract the harshest penalties, including the possibility of a death sentence. 

Despite the risks, a small number of health workers continue to fill the gaps left by a healthcare system that treats queer Nigerians as sinners before treating them as patients.

For Azeez, the health and well-being of LGBTQ+ people matter more than the threats he faces. Although MSM make up less than one  percent of Nigeria’s population, they account for nearly 20 percent of new HIV infections, and the country has the fourth-largest HIV epidemic globally. 

Limited access to sexual and reproductive health services forces many queer Nigerians to rely on discreet support from non-profits and dedicated healthcare workers. 

Living with HIV in Nigeria comes with a heavy social burden. Many people face discrimination that harms their mental health and makes it hard to trust even family or friends. For LGBTQ+ Nigerians, the situation is even worse, as the public hospitals that should support them often discriminate against them instead.

“I am passionate about what I do. Most queer people, especially MSM are ignorant about how to take care of their health and they do not know much about HIV, STIs and condom use,” Azeez said. “ One of the key things that I am willing to achieve is to make sure that we achieve behavioural change. [That] means that people who are not using condoms and lubricants should start using it.” 

John*, an MSM living in southwest Nigeria, recalls his HIV diagnosis in a public hospital in 2015. Instead of receiving counselling, he was lectured and condemned.

“The doctor spent like an hour or two saying all sorts of things, telling me that I should go and repent. He forced me to sit and listen to him; otherwise, I would not get any medication,” he said.

Discrimination followed him at every hospital visit. For nearly two years, he endured this treatment until finding refuge with the Population Council, an LGBTQ-friendly organisation.

“Despite the numerous training [some health workers] undergo from various organisations to learn how not to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, they still do it over and over again,” he said worriedly.

Oghenefejiro Adjerhore, an LGBTQ+ rights activist, explains that such stigma strips queer people of the dignity every patient deserves.

“It’s almost like you’re not human anymore. They even want to hold your hands and chant religious things,” he said. “So for them, it’s a case of this is the consequence of an action of you doing something that the Bible or the Qur’an or whatever text that they live by is strongly against. Now, when this happens, obviously, you’re denied friendly healthcare because now these service providers act like they are judges instead of caregivers.”

He warns that stigma in healthcare spreads myths and misinformation about HIV, fuelling discrimination and exclusion that affects both queer individuals and the wider community.

This exclusion can be deadly. In 2016, nurse and case manager Ozoemenam Ikenna lost a close friend, an MSM who contracted HIV and received no adequate support. That loss pushed him into advocacy and healthcare support for queer Nigerians through the Solace Hub. 

He worries that many MSM still hold dangerous misconceptions about HIV transmission, worsened by discrimination that drives them away from hospitals.

“Some MSM believe that since you don’t have sex with a woman and get pregnant it is difficult to get HIV, so they embark on unsafe sex practices, thereby increasing the high rates of HIV and other STIs,” he said. “I actually started being so passionate about it to help to reduce the prevalence of HIV and STDs among the community members.” 

Ikenna uses social media to reach MSM discreetly. Many contact him privately or visit his office, where testing and treatment initiation are done confidentially. He follows up with those on treatment twice a month. He also runs monthly safe-space meetings where MSM living with HIV share experiences, discuss challenges, and encourage one another to stay committed to treatment.

“I tell them not to be bothered by the stigmatisation they face in public health centres. I tell them to develop a thick skin over the whole stigma and discrimination from the outside world,” he said. “I always tell them that they are glorious, beautiful, and good. They must not allow anybody to make them feel less human.” 

For Gab-Cliton Offor, a queer person living with HIV, safe spaces like this are a lifeline. After being diagnosed in 2017, a nurse at a hospital called him “a disappointment” because of his sexual orientation and suggested he needed prayer. He felt unsafe and never returned to that hospital.

A friend eventually directed him to a one-stop shop—the first place he felt safe and comfortable among people like himself. He later led a peer-support group for more than 200 queer people living with HIV in Lagos State.

“I said, okay, we need to create a space where we need to come together so that we can keep account of ourselves,” he said. “Many of those people living with HIV were evicted from where they were, rejected by family, or lost their jobs. So we started reaching out to organizations to provide support in terms of funding or maybe food.” 

For Okezie Emmanuel, who has been beaten so many times for simply trying to help queer people living with HIV, giving up is not an option. Emmanuel, who lives in Anambra State in southeast Nigeria, works as a case manager with the Be Glad and Support Foundation. His job is to enrol queer people living with HIV and provide them with counselling and psychosocial support.

He says he has lost count of how many times people pretending to be queer have set him up. They would contact him online, claim they needed medical checkups or ARV drugs, and ask him to meet them. But when he arrived at the location they chose, a group would appear, harass him, accuse him of supporting queer people, and beat him.

Because of this, he now meets clients only in places he chooses himself. Still, he says none of these experiences will stop him from helping men who have sex with men in a society that strongly rejects them.

“I believe that the queer guys get the help they need easily and whenever they want without being uncomfortable,” he said. “I wouldn’t want a situation where a queer guy goes to the hospital and he’s being discriminated for his sexuality. Our sexuality is our choice. It is not something that is being taught. It is inbuilt.” 

For Adjerhore, the LGBTQ+ activist, queer-friendly organisations and health workers have filled a huge gap by providing HIV care to queer people. But he says these efforts have serious limits because many of the organisations depend entirely on grants, which means their work could stop if funding is withdrawn.

To him, real progress means having strong policies that ensure no one is discriminated against in public hospitals because of their sexual orientation or beliefs.

“We need to start pushing for legislation that allows people to access services whenever they need them, without the fear of being treated differently, and without the fear of stigma and discrimination when they go to seek care,” he said.

 

*The name is protected because the individual seeks anonymity.

 

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Edited/Reviewed by Samuel Banjoko, Patricia Kisesi, Uzoma Ihejirika, Awom Kenneth, and Caleb Okereke. 

Illustrated by Rex Opara