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Adebisi Alimi Bisi Alimi (born Adebisi Ademola Alimi, 1975) is a Nigerian gay rights activist, public speaker, blog writer and HIV/LGBT advocate who achieved notoriety when he became the first Nigerian to come out of the closet on television.
In 1993, he gained admission into Ogun State Polytechnic, and would later study Creative Arts, majoring in Theatre at the University of Lagos. He became active in LGBT issues and HIV prevention in the late 1990s, when his friends were dying of AIDS. After two years of community mobilisation and condom distribution amongst gay men and men who have sex with other men (MSM) in Nigeria, he joined Alliance Rights Nigeria (ARN) as program director, developing and providing HIV/AIDS and sexual health services and support. It was during his tenure at university that his sexuality attracted media attention, after Campus Lifestyle, the university’s magazine outed him as a gay man. Prior to the magazine outing, Bisi Alimi had experienced much discrimination within the campus, including facing a disciplinary committee on the accusation of his gay status. Although he did graduate, he was nearly refused his certificate as it was believed that his morals were unacceptable for an alumnus of the university. In 2004, he was diadnosed with HIV. That very same year, his turning point came when he became the first Nigerian gay man to appear on national television as a guest on Funmi Iyanda's New Dawn with Funmi, a talk show on the NTA; it was on this show that Bisi Alimi confirmed his sexuality as a homosexual and asked for social acceptance from the public. His decision to come out of the closet generated potential love interests and death threats, and Bisi Alimi was disowned by his family and most of his friends - including some in the gay community - ejected from his home and made redundant, and New Dawn 's live format was canceled. Future guests on the pre-recorded version were screened by NTA executive producers to avoid what was considered "causing public offence". Shortly after coming out, Alimi was chosen as a representative to give face to homosexuality in Nigeria at the 4th National Conference on HIV/AIDS held in Abuja. He later became a Nigerian gay rights activist leading several peaceful protests and social dialogues to demand acceptance of homosexuals in Nigeria. In July 2005, The Independent Project for Equal Rights-Nigeria was founded by Alimi with a group of friends. He served as executive director of this organisation where he pioneered several Nigerian LGBT Youth Group initiatives until April 2007. He also worked as director of Nigeria youth programmes at Alliance Rights organization. However, his controversial interview on national television in 2004 had become catalyst for the proposed motion on "Anti-Same Sex Bill" of 2006 that was presented to law makers in the Nigerian National Assembly. The motion for this controversial “Anti-Same Sex” bill was presented before the legislative house three times between 2006 and 2011. An attempt on Bisi Alimi’s life in 2007 prompted his decision to leave Nigeria as continued repression of gay rights and hostile oppositions against LGBT organizations in the country created a grim hope. He quickly migrated to the United Kingdom where he later applied for and was granted protection asylum in 2008. In 2011 he completed his Master's in politics from Birkbeck University in "Global Governance and Public Policy". His academic research is titled “Access to Anti-retroviral Medications in Middle, Low income countries and the Intellectual Property Rights”. Now residing in London, Bisi Alimi has continued his advocacy on gay rights within migrant African communities. He has worked for organizations in the UK including Naz Project London, Michael Bell Research and Consultancy and HIV I-Base. Bisi also worked with AHPN, Terrence Higgins Trust and Mesmac in the North East of England to set up a project for newly arrived African gay immigrants to the United Kingdom. He was selected a member of the IAS youth organizing member for Mexico 2008 and was a member of AmfAR review panel for the international grants for African MSM AIDS initiative 2009 and 2011 respectively. He joined Kaleidoscope Trust in 2011 as the Director in charge of Africa. Presently Alimi is steering a community engagement project for migrant African MSM in the United Kingdom and has remained visible in leading debates and discussions on sexual health issues of black and African gay men. At the Antwerp conference, Bisi Alimi participated in one of the "couch sessions". |