Sunday, 13 March 2016

For Olumide, and us

Dear Naija,
Akinnifesi Olumide Olubunmi. (photo sourced from )

Once more you have let your 'holiness' corrupt your call to love and protect. I know the world is unreasonable but the attack and death of Akinnifesi Olumide Olubunmi kicks you off the conversation completely. How can you prepare us to stand firm to defend you when you indoctrinate our hearts with so much hate and darkness. And you make this filth okay.

My pastors, teachers, leaders, corpers, brothers, family...what life came from grinding his face against the cold death? Did he not work hard and prove himself a treasure? Did he not love and give? Naija, did he not be? Was he not in your classroom, church, mosque? Did you not feed from his sweat? Did it taste any different? Did it kill you?

Why did the colours of his heart upset you? Even when it beat so discreetly in his chest? Why did you kill him for the stubborness of his circumstance, his blessing? Did we not all share in the sting of the sun? Were we not all born? Will we not all die?

sourced from
My naija, why did the splash of his warm blood unjustly drench your soil? Did he hurt you? Did he ever threaten to hurt you?

Though the Bible, the sweetest, offers me the best, it somehow teaches you to hate. How can something so beautiful make you so cold? When you unjustly take us down, you crash first, because we are fiercely and inh
erently part of you, and you us.

My Naija, we'll never conform, we have tried. So kill! Hit your hardest! How many of us do you want dead? Ten? Ten thousand? Ten million? How many of us do you know, really? In our government, churches, mosques, markets, streets, classrooms...How many of us can you genuinely tell apart? So strike Naija! Keep destroying your own. And when you done, you will fill all their shoes with your 'holiness'. You will sculpt out heteronormative teachers, mentors, pastors, neighbours, lawyers, students, doctors, accountant, writers, readers, thinkers...from your cold hatred- because this is all that will be left. Oh I'm sorry, you may also need to summon Elijah and Saint John to paint, dance and invest in your economy. And perhaps invoke Amadioha and Mohammed to occupy the stalls and flourish the markets themselves. Lets face it Naija, its quite practical to go around slaying all the sons with light voices, and the girls with beards.

My Naija, does cutting Olumide off fulfill you? Has it put food on our table or jobs in our lives? Will it fortify our naira or 'de-flaw' our democracy? Will it heal our youths of HIV or stop them from being terrified at the sight of condoms? Will it save our birthing mothers from dying? Will it heal Ogoni? Will it bring back our girls?

Hasn't this year been crazy enough for us all? Why do you insist that it remains hotter for the LGBTIA community? It solves nothing really.

Dear Naija, you have brought hot tears to my eyes! Your 'holiness' just got darker, its claws searing into the same flesh that I have sworn in my creed and pledges will die for you if it has to.

How can you do this?


sourced from

More info on Olumide

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