“Had I been returned to Nigeria, I would have been arrested, beaten up, and probably killed,” Mac Iyalla told Ecumenical News International. “I would have received no support from the churches in my country because they work hand in hand with the government.”
Nigeria enforces strict anti-homosexual laws that go back to its colonial era almost 50 years ago and African gay men and lesbian women in Canterbury said they suffered against discrimination by church and state in their countries.
Mac Iyalla fled the country in 2006 following a series of death threats.
“They would have been renewed and probably carried out had I not been given asylum here,” he said in a telephone interview. “Now, I can start re-building my life and hopefully I will work here with an organization I represented back home, Changing Attitudes.”
Mac Iyalla spoke on problems facing gay men and Lesbian women in Africa at an event at the Lambeth Conference’s University of Kent venue, organized by the English branch of Changing Attitudes, which describes itself as “a network of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and heterosexual members of the Anglican communion”.
The director of CA in England, Colin Coward, told ENI, “We only received the news [of the asylum application decision] a couple of days ago after a long period of frustration, waiting and concern. We’re very grateful that the British government has taken seriously the threat to Davis’s life were he to return to Africa. Thanks to his refugee status, he can continue to work for gay and Lesbian Nigerian Anglicans, along with friends and colleagues from many parts of Africa, from the safety of a base in London.”
Mac Iyalla said, “Britain and Nigeria have very strong links but I do not think anyone would dare to attack me here. But recently, I was assaulted in Togo, a Francophone country, and my attackers were speaking in English.”
Asked about Mac Iyalla’s new status, Richard Kirker, the chief executive of
Lesbian and Gay Christians, told ENI, “It shows that perseverance does pay.” Kirker and his supporters are organizing a petition calling on the British government to allow two Ugandans, Kizza Musinguzi, a 20-year-old gay man, and Prossy Kakooza, 26, a lesbian, to remain in Britain. “They have also been threatened,”
