From the London Guardian-
I am still recovering from the pains and stress of making sure members of Changing Attitude Nigeria were present at last week's hearing of the same-sex marriage prohibition bill in Abuja.
When we started Changing Attitude Nigeria in 2005, the first reaction I received from Archbishop Akinola was to allow his then communications officer to use his name to launch a smear campaign against me.
What is my crime? My crime is that I said I was a gay Nigerian Anglican who is tired of living in the closet over my sexuality, which already was an open secret.
Why was the church of Nigeria so angry with me? They were angry with me because at that time Archbishop Akinola, in collaboration with his western conservative friends, was saying that there were no homosexuals in Nigeria. My coming out showed their false claims up for what they were, and I am glad to see that they now acknowledge our existence, although they do not celebrate us.
I have repeatedly told Archbishop Akinola and his allies that what westerners introduced to Nigeria was the Christian faith and homophobia. Homosexuality has existed in Africa from the beginning, and we have local names for it in our languages, be they abusive or adored names. We have a name for it and people only give names to what they can identify.
More here-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/mar/20/nigeria-gay-rights
for some background see-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/mar/13/religion-anglicanism-akinola-nigeria
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