Ifechi Japhet NwaorisaAuthor. Advocate. Owerri to England. Support line
My story

My story

I was born in Owerri, in Imo State, in the south-east of Nigeria, into a Christian family that loved me and a country that wrote a law against me. These are the chapters, in the order they happened.

Ifechi Japhet Nwaorisa in a black coat, looking straight into the camera
01My familyI am the second of four children of Stephen Nwaorisa and Ngozi Obi. We grew up at D10, Army Housing Scheme, Obinze, on the Port Harcourt…Read → 02Owerri, Imo StateOwerri is the capital of Imo State, in the Igbo heartland of south-east Nigeria. It calls itself the entertainment capital and the land of…Read → 03Growing up gay in NigeriaI knew before I had a word for it. Most of us do. What Nigeria adds is a second knowledge, learned at the same time: that this thing you…Read → 04God bless gay peopleI grew up in church and I never left it, even when it left me. The prayer that gives my memoir its title is the one I have said every day…Read → 05Fourteen years: the law against usIn January 2014 the President of Nigeria signed the Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act. I was a teenager. Overnight, in law, I became a…Read → 06From Owerri to EnglandPeople imagine leaving as an escape. It is closer to an amputation. You cut off the country to save the rest of yourself, and then you…Read → 07Life in EnglandEngland is where I am writing this from. It is cold in a way that gets into your teeth, it is free in a way that took me a year to believe…Read → 08Living with HIVI am HIV positive. I write it in the first line because in Nigeria it would be the last thing anyone said about me, whispered, after I was…Read → 09Why I writeBetween September and November 2025 I published six books. People ask how. The honest answer is that I had been writing them for ten years…Read →
In short

The years, briefly

The full account is in the chapters and in the books. This is the spine.

  1. Born in Owerri

    Imo State, Nigeria. The family home is at D10, Army Housing Scheme, Obinze, on the road out of Owerri.

  2. Church, school, three siblings

    Francis is the eldest, then me, then my sister Eudora and my younger brother Charles. Sundays are for God. I already know I am different.

  3. The law arrives

    The Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act is signed in January. Fourteen years. I am a teenager, and the country has just named me a criminal.

  4. The ten years begin

    The decade this site's journal covers. Hiding, telling the truth, losing the ground under my feet.

  5. The diagnosis

    I learned I was living with HIV after the worst thing that ever happened to me. I wrote about it in Owerri to London. I am alive and on treatment.

  6. Six books

    Between September and November 2025 I published six books on Amazon, including one written with my mother.

  7. England

    I live in England, with HIV, writing, running a support line with volunteers, and standing peacefully for Biafra.

Ifechi Japhet Nwaorisa smiling in front of a house in Owerri, Nigeria
Owerri, 2025

The long version is in the journal.

Ten years, one entry at a time, free to read. The books tell the rest.

Ten years of journalRead the book