The police are investigating the death of a Nigerian transgender TikToker known as “Abuja Area Mama”.
The battered and bruised body of a 33-year-old transgender woman was found on a road in the capital, Abuja, on Thursday, according to local media.
The Abuja Area Mama has had a loyal fan base on social media, where she has posted about being transgender and life as a sex worker.
She never used her full name, sometimes referring to herself as Ifeanyi.
Nigeria is a deeply conservative society and people who fall outside the norm are often targeted. Last year, the TikToker shared how she was attacked and feared for her life.
Same-sex relationships are prohibited in Africa’s most populous country, and many LGBTQ+ Nigerians live in fear.
Nigerian TikTokers perceived as gay have also been subjected to homophobic abuse online.
In her latest Instagram post on Wednesday, the Abuja Area Mama had said she was ready to go and meet her boyfriend.
Her body was found hours later along the Katampe – Mabushi expressway, Banex, Wuse II area of Abuja, in what is suspected to be a murder case.
According to a statement from the police, a team of detectives visited the scene Thursday morning and “preliminary investigations revealed that the individual was a man fully dressed in female clothing with no means of identification on him.”
The Abuja police boss, Benneth Igweh, has since ordered a “thorough and discreet” investigation into the death.
Last September, the TikToker said that she was stabbed by an unidentified person under uncertain circumstances.
On her TikTok profile, she describes herself as “Abuja’s number one crossdresser and queen of the streets”.
She said her posts were meant to be a reflection of her life and to educate her followers.
The news of her death caused an outpouring of grief on social media.
Although Nigerian laws guarantee freedom from discrimination and the right to privacy and family life, mass arrests and detentions of people belonging to the LGBTQ+ community are common, especially in the states of the north.
“Taking laws into your hand because you don’t like another person’s sexual orientation is the worst form of inhumanity,” Martins Ifijeh, a local journalist, posted on X.
Source: BBC News
