Nigerian queer activists have achieved a High Court ruling declaring parts of the country's Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act unconstitutional. Yet registrars, banks, police, and landlords are refusing to honour the ruling, reducing it to a mere 'victory on paper'. Matthew K. Gichohi, Ayodele Sogunro, and Liv Tønnessen argue that queer rights are eroded through bureaucracy, not legislation
Global Fellow, Centre on Law and Social Transformation, Chr. Michelsen Institute
Ayodele is a lawyer and scholar-activist whose work sits at the meeting point of law, politics, and society.
He holds a Doctor of Laws from the University of Pretoria and a research Master of Laws from Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, and was a 2024 Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy.
His research addresses democratic backsliding, comparative constitutional law, legal mobilisation, and the transnational anti-rights networks that shape law and policy across the Global South, with sustained attention to the rights of sexual and gender minorities.
His scholarship appears in the African Human Rights Law Journal, South African Public Law, and the Oxford Handbook of LGBTI Law, and he is co-editor of Scholarly and Activist Perspectives on LGBTIQ+ Lived Realities in Africa.
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