Imagine Emem, a frontline emergency responder who spends hours managing an online support community, staring at a phone screen while wondering if a strange message is a genuine cry for help or a digital trap. Now imagine Tunde, a community organizer double-checking the locks of a meeting venue, feeling a familiar tightness in his chest because the surrounding neighborhood has grown increasingly hostile.
While Emem and Tunde are fictional characters, their daily anxieties represent the real-world experiences of sexual and gender minorities navigating Nigeria today. As anti-rights movements grow more vocal, the spaces where queer people live, work, and connect are coming under immense pressure.
At TIERs, we believe that the right to safety is not a luxury. It is a fundamental human right that belongs to every single Nigerian, regardless of who they are or whom they love. Recognizing the heavy toll this environment takes on our network, we recently brought together grassroots organizations and individual advocates for a residential two-day safety and security workshop.
Living and learning together under one roof for two days allowed us to peel back the layers of fear and focus heavily on capacity strengthening. The goal was simple: to move from being reactive to becoming deeply proactive. The strategies that emerged from this intensive space provide a practical roadmap for anyone looking to protect their digital footprint and navigate the physical world safely.
For advocates like Emem, the internet is both a lifeline and a battlefield. During our digital security sessions, participants mapped out the exact ways hostile actors try to compromise queer spaces online. The collective takeaways from the room emphasize that digital hygiene is our first line of defense:
- Absolute Account Lockdowns: Two-factor authentication is no longer optional. Enabling it across every single email, social media profile, and messaging app creates a vital barrier against unauthorized access.
- Encrypted Safe Havens: Moving sensitive conversations away from standard SMS and onto end-to-end encrypted platforms like Signal ensures that community discussions remain private. Utilizing disappearing messages adds an extra layer of security.
- Vigilance in Digital Spaces: Online setups and extortion are real threats. The workshop reinforced the need to vet profiles carefully on dating and social apps, trust your instincts when a conversation feels rushed, and avoid sharing highly sensitive personal information or location details with unverified contacts.
Reclaiming Physical Peace and safety relies entirely on the strength of our community networks. For organizers like Tunde, the workshop shifted the perspective on security from isolation to collective vigilance. The physical security outcomes focused heavily on practical, everyday habits:
- The Buddy System and Live Tracking: No one should navigate high-risk situations alone. When traveling to unfamiliar areas or meeting someone new, ensuring a trusted ally knows your timeline and has access to your live location can save lives.
- Rigorous Space Vetting: Before any community gathering or meeting takes place, the venue must be thoroughly assessed. This means checking for secure entry and exit points, evaluating the general tone of the neighborhood,and ensuring the space guarantees privacy.
- Emergency Infrastructure: Safety requires having a plan before a crisis hits. Advocates left the workshop with clear protocols on who to call, creating rapid-response trees that link individuals to trusted legal aid and community support systems the moment an issue arises.
Ultimately, this workshop reminded us that building our capacity to stay safe is a profound act of resilience. By locking down our digital footprints and looking out for one another in the physical world, we protect the human dignity of our community. At TIERs, we remain committed to ensuring that every Nigerian can live safely and authentically, keeping our collective movement secure, connected, and unbroken.
