Eric Effiong in “Sex Education” is an Inspiration to Nigeria’s Gays

                      

MARC SILVER

NPR.org

In season 3 of the popular Netflix series Sex Education, the character named Eric Effiong goes to Nigeria. It is a risky trip.

Eric is a gay teenager in this series about a high school in the United Kingdom where sex is very much on everyone's mind.

Eric is out and proud. His parents know he is gay and have come to accept his sexuality.

But a trip to Nigeria for a family wedding makes his mom nervous — and for a good reason. The country's legal code criminalizes sex between men and sex between women. In the north of the country where sharia law holds, penalties can include public flogging or stoning to death (although that penalty has not been used). In addition, members of the LGBTQ community have been beaten up in public.

Bisi Alimi, an actor-turned-activist, made headlines when he came out as gay on Nigerian television.

Claire Eggers/NPR

Did the show offer a realistic depiction of its gay-in-Nigeria storyline? We asked Bisi Alimi, an actor who came out on a national TV talk show in Nigeria in the early 2000s and says he had to leave the country as a result. He's the founder of the Bisi Alimi Foundation, which advocates for the rights of LGBTQ people in Nigeria. Now 46, Alimi lives in London with his husband of 5 years and has just started an executive coaching business. 

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This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Warning: SPOILERS ABOUND for season 3 of Sex Education.

Eric and his mom go to Lagos, Nigeria for a family wedding. Dad stays home. What do you have to say about Eric's relationship with his mom and her concerns about the trip to Nigeria?

I think that scenario of the mother who is accepting of her child and understanding the homophobia in Nigeria, the expectation of homophobia, is very, very accurate.

That's why Eric's mom tells him to tone down his flashy outfits and eschew his eye makeup after they arrive in Lagos. 

She is afraid that this loving son who is gay is going to a country that is homophobic. It is the experience of every mother in Nigeria who has a queer child, the fear that something will happen to them even if you don't know what it will be.