Veso Oke, a Nigerian transgender has declared that Ghana is a safer place for people of her sexual orientation and other similar less ‘recognised’ sexualities to live.
She feels more comfortable in Ghana than in Nigeria even though she admits that she doesn’t undergo any form of personal harassment in her home country anytime she visits.
The unapologetic transgender says the legal positions of the two countries accounts to a large extent for the preference of Ghana to Nigeria or any other West African country.
She explained that the LGBTIQ law signed by former President Good Luck Jonathan which spelt out that persons of such sexual orientation when caught and found guilty will be liable to about 40 years in prison.
To avoid any tussle with law enforcement agencies or the media, Veso Oke has committed to stay away from her homeland to the extent of insisting of not attending the funeral rites of her dad who is due to be buried in a few weeks in Nigeria.
“My dad is dead but unfortunately I am not sure I will be attending the funeral. I am not ready for Nigerians and their issues. It is safer here in Ghana. In West Africa, I think it is safer living in Ghana than in Nigeria,” she disclosed.
“I go to Nigeria a lot but I don’t really get any bashing but I think, one, they have a law that says being a part of the LGBTI community you will go for 40 years in prison so to avoid any issues with somebody, one policeman or one blogger using me to create an issue I just don’t want to go,” she said in response to a series of questions posed to her during an interview on TV3.
Despite feeling more comfortable in Ghana, the transgender confessed the only time she came close to being lynched was in Ghana, at the Madina market.
She clarified, however, that her experience at the Madina market had nothing to do with her sexual orientation now as at the time she hadn’t begun the transition from a male to a female.
Veso Oke responded when asked where she was nearly lynched saying, “Here in Ghana but not because I was a transgender. At that time I had not transitioned. And that was what made me stop taking ‘trotro’ because it was the mate that caused it. They were insulting me and calling me all sorts of names. I felt so embarrassed.”
Veso Golden Oke hopes to complete her transition from being a male to female in the coming months as she has begun the treatment for it.
She says her family and church members have accepted her and appreciates who she is and has decided to be, a situation she says would have shocked her should ‘christians’ had discriminated against her.
By: Jonah Eledi/awakenewsonline.com
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