My childhood friend and pal has just been ousted from the closet and this action could earn him at least 14years behind bars and this is got me really troubled because as a Nigerian, being gay and talking about it means you are trying to go against the government and your family's belief. And that is what Jay just did and now he wants me to help him get away to a place where he will be free to live his life the way he pleases with no one casting aspersions.
Okay, let me tell you about Jay. We grew up together in Southern Nigeria and this is from our Primary and Secondary school days. His father was a teacher in the Catholic primary school we attended and was also actively involved in the day to day administration in the church not as a Reverend but as someone working with them. 
I first found out Jay was gay while we were in our Junior Secondary year when he was beaten up by a dude and his friends who claimed he made a "pass" at him while they were at the village stream, and after that couple of incidences that even got reported to his parents and on one of those days when some kids from school dragged him home after catching him in an uncompromising position with another boy who was quick to flee the scene, his father, Mr. Imonitie stripped him naked and rubbed pepper all over his body and paraded him around the community while flogging him and denouncing the 'devil' in him. Such was and still is the way people here treat perceived gays.
After that embarrassing experience, one that never cleared from his memory as Jay would tell me, he had to lay low and become kinda ostracized from the people save for some of us who really didn't hate him or condemn him.
Well, after secondary school, we went our separate ways to attend University in different locations and later met again in James' wedding in Abuja 15years later and that was when it now dawned on me that my friend was Gay and there was nothing anyone can do about it than let him be himself.
So it was no surprise to me when at 2:32am this morning, my phone rang and it was Jay telling me he needs my help and that his neighbours had gone to call the police on him because they had been suspicious of him and his partner who had been living together now for under a year. Jay had been resident in Kaduna State working as a banker and has had to constantly endure both physical and emotional abuse from people because he had now developed some female features or characteristics as they say he walks and "swings" his waist and even talks like a lady.
He fled his home in Kaduna this morning heading to meet with me in the PH to see if I could help him get away and as sorry as I feel for him, I have no idea what to do for him because the Country is not friendly about issues like this and he cannot go home to his parents in the village because his father disowned him about 5 years ago when he told them he was gay.
What do I do for my friend? The city I live is also not a friendly place as well because I have witnessed first hand how two men were almost beaten to death by an angry mob because they caught them inside a hotel room having sex. It was the timely intervention of the police that saved them from untimely death.
Jay is my friend and has been for a long time in fact, he is one of my oldest friends and I hate to see him in this sorry state.