Miss Sahhara, who used to be known as Clifford Oche when she was a man, said she faced persecution when she was in Nigeria.

She said she was bullied and harassed, and so decided to move to the UK.

Miss Sahhara said moving to the UK saved her from committing suicide. According to her, the decision to become a transgender was not taken overnight.

“Being a woman and living in your true gender is not a lifestyle. There was no time of epiphany; it’s like someone asking you when you decided to be male or female, am sure your answer will be, since you were born.”

“So I have always known that I am female, my brain has always been female.”

According to her, moving to the UK was her “redemption”.

“…it was either staying in Nigeria, continue being bullied, harassed, beaten up, and succeed in killing myself, or moving away to a more open minded society to leave my dreams to my fullest potentials, so I took the latter.”