My friend had been beaten and it was clear that he’d led the police to me because he had been caught himself and had no other choice.
It’s a common tactic for police officers in Nigeria to use LGBTQ+ people as a cat’s paw to get to others in the community. I was hit repeatedly as the policemen interrogated me about being gay, asking me crude questions such as why I enjoyed having sex with men and why hadn’t I ever had sex with a woman.I begged them to set me free, telling them they could have the 96,000 naira (about £200) in my bank account.