The first of it’s kind; a queer youths’ themed open mic, in the city of Abeokuta, and in the country as a whole. The splendid event started a little bit later than scheduled, as guests seemed to arrive late due to commuting challenges (e.g. poor road network and traffic). Nevertheless, the evening started with a red carpet, registration process, body art station, resources’ materials stop and the main event of the night.
We started with a welcome address by O.K. Timileyin and was hosted by Doctor Gentle where different sorts of performances started, with act of poetry, singing, story telling, Yoruba rhythms, cultural queer troop dance and drag.
Amidst the performance was a panel themed “LGBT YOUTHS: THE FUTURE OF ACTIVISM” hosted by QueerNerd. On this panel, we had Ayobami Kehinde, Obatolu Atanda and Mx Yosola, which was a very educative panel ending in questions and answers to wrap it up. The event which was attended by +50 people, ended with a twelve basket of pastries and drinks as an after-social.
Thereafter, we all retired to our hotel, where we had our after party. We had 25 party goers that night, which was lodged in numerous rooms of the 4 stars hotel we were in. The after party helped build a bond amongst everyone and it ignited various ideas and more questions raised in relation tp to the progress of the Nigerian LGBT movement. This discussion spilled over into the dawn of the following day, but we managed to rest our heads before departure, which occurred exactly 11:00 am on 15th of December, 2019.
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