'When we are left with nothing but our dreams to live with, we might as well go ahead and make them a reality'

by Maurice Chapot

France, July 2023

In Lagos, Nigeria, the entertainment capital of Africa, the nightlife has long been inscribed into the bustling city’s DNA. From its flamboyant wedding culture, to traditional hangouts with friends to iconic venues like the New African Shrine in Ikeja, or the sulphurous night-clubs in Lekki and V.I. (Cubana, Silverfox, you name it), down to its more underground party scene, Lagos is not a destination to contend with when it comes to jayé (enjoy life). A reality that queer entrepreneur and artistic director Aaron Ahalu has well understood.💡

Born in Jos in 1996, Aaron Ahalu grew up in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, where he started a promising career in the financial sector. But as he kept embracing his queer identity more and more, the gap between his aspirations and the life path offered to him by a conservative Nigerian society kept widening. Soon enough, Aaron found himself making the difficult decision to pivot and jump ship, for the sake of his mental balance. That is how he landed in Lagos in March 2021, exactly a year after COVID’s breakthrough, with no plan, but a sheer will to make his dream life come true.🤲🏽

Freshly arrived in Lagos, he rapidly started to expand his network, unveiling a natural talent for community building and organising. Leveraging his contacts, and a fine eye for styling, set design and composition, he launched his first ever public pride ball, together with partnering venue hFactor. Inspired by global music icon Rihanna, and the wider New York ball-room scene, this landmark event marked a pivotal moment of his debut career as a creative director and event designer. “I didn’t want to wait until I travel to New York to experiment the ball-room culture” he explains, “I just saw our need for it, for our community, and I decided to take up the space”.💃🏾

The Pride Ball Reimagined, a fully bootstrapped project, progressively gave way to new ventures and parties (House of Curiosities, Queerloween, etc.), as Lagos underground ecosystem started gaining more traction and attract wider audiences. In the aftermath of the #EndSARS protest revolting against police brutality and corrupt practices in autumn 2020, more and more young Nigerians found themselves at odds with the conservatism and hyper-violence of their society, and started looking at alternative ways to make community and culture, while acknowledging mental health, emotional vulnerability and spirituality as catalysts for a positive change. 🌈

Fundamentally designed to inspire joy and hope, those parties, crafted for and by its growing community of young, creative and inspired citizens, champion values of inclusivity, respect, resilience, and openness, while providing a safe space for sexual and gender minorities to thrive. At Savannah Creatives, we believe in the power of the collective, and in the values cultural entrepreneurs such as Aaron Ahalu embody, in both their lifestyle and creative endeavours.✨

So to you Aaron, and to all the Aaron’s out there, thank you gworls for offering us such inspiring role models, the precedents you are setting have no price.🙏🏾🫂

Video credits:

🎶 Aaron Ahalu
📸 Bishop Ebuka Duke
📹 Abraham Charles

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