Almost a year ago, in August 2025, Hilary Ikechukwu Emereole, a 23-year-old queer man, boarded a bus in the Nigerian city of Owerri and travelled one hundred kilometres south to Port Harcourt, where he had arranged to meet a friend at a hotel.
Emereole later told close friends that this meeting was a trap.
The two men went up to a room together. After a few minutes, Emereole’s supposed friend said he was going to get them some drinks. He returned with several other people. They turned up the television volume and began assaulting Emereole, eventually knocking him unconscious and stealing his personal items. His ‘friend’ contacted his family to demand a ransom. If he was not paid in ten minutes, he told them, Emereole would be killed.
