Exceptionally brilliant TV talk show host Funmi Iyanda has finally opened up about how Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) shut down her live shows after she interviewed openly gay Nigerian man, Bisi Alimi, on her popular breakfast show, New Dawn, in 2004.
I remember this story pretty well. After Bisi Alimi appeared on that show his life changed forever. He couldn’t even return to UNILAG where he was a student at the time. He was forced to go into hiding and eventually relocated abroad. Read Funmi’s story after the cut…
Its a good thing my meddling mum took Musibau off his alcoholic dad just before that wretch of a father was sent to jail for raping a minor. My mother went missing a year later so I never saw Musibau again but thats another story.
He was 15 but he looked 12, l was seven but l looked 10. People generally looked weird in my neighbourhood, but nobody thought anyone one weird odd maybe but life was odd wasnt it?
Musibau was the first to run into Miss John who spoke Queens English and walked like a girl. Everybody called him Miss John, I have no idea why. But we were interested in him because we needed to walk through his garden to climb into Baba Olugbos compound for the agbalumo tree.
Nobody dared walked through Baba Olugbos compound to get to that tree. He was a wealthy molue bus entrepreneur with seven wives, a distended, shirtless stomach, marijuana thickened growl and a fast horsewhip for clueless kids.
I had four older sisters and two younger brothers but I felt closest to Musibau perhaps because we had a shared tendency to get into trouble and a common dislike of Nureni. Nureni was crippled by childhood polio and so dragged himself around on his muscular torso except when he went to school wearing his leg braces and crutches, which made him vulnerable.
We did not like Nureni; he had a caustic tongue, a reptilian ability to wrestle you down then strangle you and was genius at maths. He was faster moving dragging himself than he was on his crutches. He hated those crutches but he really liked Mulika.
Mulika was one of the two daughters of Alhaji Abara whose two wives wore hijabs so you couldnt tell one from the other. I of course could; Mulikas mother was the one with the two Pel on her cheeks, right above her haughty cheekbones. A stunning woman. I knew because I saw them in the womens quarters every time I went to play with Mulika, who had inherited her mothers looks.
We all loved Alhaji Abara because he had the best spread for breaking fasts at Ramadan. It didnt matter whether you were Christian, Animist or Muslim. You could come break the fast on divine akara, even if you didnt fast. He used to say only Allah sees the good heart. We all attended Koran classes because it was fun and then went to church on Sunday because of the music and dancing……..
