One man’s account of an alleged homophobic assault in Ajegunle offers a glimpse into the fear, exposure and violence some LGBT Nigerians say they face.

Jide Kirwood is not his real name. His identity and some identifying details have been withheld because of concerns for his safety.

On the evening of March 10, 2026, Jide Kirwood says he arrived at an Airbnb in Ajegunle, Lagos, with his male partner expecting an ordinary night.

It became anything but ordinary.

Kirwood says several young men approached them outside the property and demanded money. The couple refused and, as the exchange became increasingly hostile, retreated into the building.

At that point, according to Kirwood, the confrontation appeared to be about money.

What allegedly happened afterwards changed its character entirely.

Kirwood says someone inside the compound looked through a window and saw his partner wearing a wig and heels. The man began laughing and shouting before drawing the attention of others outside.

When Kirwood and his partner eventually emerged from the building, he says, the men were waiting.

The confrontation turned violent.

“They started attacking us,” Kirwood recalls in an interview with The Guardian.

According to his account, when he attempted to protect his partner, one of the men retrieved a machete, commonly called a cutlass, from beside a building.

Kirwood alleges that the man struck him on the hand and then around his face and the side of his head while accusing him of being a “sinner”.

He ran.

His partner ran too.

The men chased them through the surrounding streets, he says.

For Kirwood, what had allegedly begun as a demand for money had become an attack in which his perceived sexual orientation was being used against him.

From suspicion to violence

Kirwood says another man in the area eventually intervened and demanded to know why the group was attacking them.

The response, according to Kirwood, was that he was homosexual and that the men had “proof”.

They claimed to have seen his partner dressed in women’s clothing and alleged that they had witnessed intimate behaviour between the two men.

Kirwood says he was subsequently forced to the ground, slapped and beaten.

He alleges that the men mocked him, ordered him to remove his clothes and tied his hands behind his back.

Then they took his phone.

They demanded his password.

Afraid of what might happen if he refused, Kirwood says he eventually gave it to them.

When they searched the device, he says, they discovered intimate photographs of him and his partner.

Private images had suddenly become evidence in the eyes of the people surrounding him.

Kirwood says he begged for the assault to stop.

Eventually, he says, he promised the man who had intervened that he would pay him if he could get him and his partner away from the group.

The violence ended.

Kirwood says he subsequently received hospital treatment for his injuries.

His phone, however, was never returned.

The Guardian has not independently established the identities of the alleged attackers or obtained their account of what happened that night.

A wider pattern of fear

Kirwood’s allegations cannot independently establish what happened in Ajegunle that evening.

But the kind of violence, intimidation and exposure he describes exists within a broader pattern documented by human rights organisations working with LGBT people in Nigeria.

Human Rights Watch’s 2026 assessment of Nigeria cited research by the Initiative for Equal Rights documenting 556 incidents affecting 850 LGBT+ people across 29 states. The reported abuses included assault, blackmail, extortion and so-called “kito” attacks, in which victims are lured before being harassed or extorted.

Human Rights Watch has documented similar concerns over several years, including reports of mob violence, extortion, arbitrary arrests and physical and sexual violence against LGBT Nigerians.

Nigeria’s legal environment adds another dimension to that vulnerability.

The Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act prohibits same-sex marriage and criminalises certain public displays of same-sex relationships, as well as activities associated with gay organisations. Human Rights Watch notes that same-sex conduct is also criminalised under other Nigerian laws.

But the existence of laws concerning same-sex relationships does not give private citizens authority to assault, strip, extort or otherwise subject another person to degrading treatment.

Nigeria’s Constitution guarantees respect for the dignity of the person and prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment. The National Human Rights Commission has repeatedly cited those protections when condemning physical abuse and degrading treatment.

When a phone becomes a vulnerability

One of the most striking elements of Kirwood’s account is the role of his mobile phone.

For millions of young Nigerians, phones are repositories of ordinary private life: conversations, relationships, photographs, friendships and memories.

For someone whose sexuality or gender expression may expose them to hostility, the same device can become a vulnerability when accessed without consent.

That fear is not entirely hypothetical.

Human Rights Watch has previously documented cases involving LGBT Nigerians whose phones were searched and whose photographs or other private material were subsequently used during alleged intimidation or extortion.

Kirwood says that is what frightened him when his alleged attackers gained access to his device.

The danger was no longer confined to what strangers thought they had seen at the Airbnb.

His private life was now visible to them.

The loss of the phone consequently represented something more than the theft of a piece of technology.

It meant losing control over intimate information about himself and his partner.

Life behind closed doors

For some LGBT Nigerians, managing who knows about their sexuality can become part of everyday life.

What can be said at home may differ from what can be said among friends. What appears on a phone may be hidden from colleagues. A relationship that feels ordinary in private may attract very different reactions when exposed publicly.

Kirwood says his experience in Ajegunle reinforced that sense of vulnerability.

His account also illustrates the difference between a debate about homosexuality conducted in politics, religious institutions or on social media and the lived experience of someone who believes he has been targeted because of his sexuality.

For the person at the centre of such an incident, the questions are immediate.

Can I get away?

Who can I call?

Will someone help me?

What happens if my private photographs become public?

And can I report what happened without exposing myself to further danger?

Those questions help explain why violence against LGBT people can be particularly difficult to document comprehensively.

Beyond disagreement

Nigeria remains a society in which attitudes towards homosexuality are strongly contested and frequently shaped by religious, cultural and legal considerations.

Those disagreements are unlikely to disappear quickly.

But Kirwood’s allegations raise a different issue.

Disagreement over sexuality does not require violence.

The National Human Rights Commission has stressed in other cases involving alleged assaults that individuals should not resort to self-help or take the law into their own hands.

Kirwood says he survived the night in Ajegunle and received treatment for his injuries.

But he also says the experience changed the way he thinks about safety.

What he remembers is not simply being confronted.

He remembers running.

He remembers blood.

He remembers being forced to surrender the password to a phone containing intimate parts of his life.

And he remembers people, according to his account, deciding that what they believed about his sexuality justified what they were doing to him.

His allegations remain his account of what happened that night. But the wider fear surrounding them is documented beyond one man’s experience.

For Kirwood, the consequences are personal.

“I just wanted it to stop,” he says.

Behind that sentence sits a larger question about dignity and safety in Nigeria: whatever people believe about another person’s sexuality, where should disagreement end and violence begin?

For anyone subjected to an assault, the law provides a simpler answer.

Violence is not a licence that private citizens acquire because they disapprove of someone else.