Alexx Ekubo published an open letter preaching tolerance on New Year's Day. (Alexx Ekubo/Facebook)

Nigerian actor Alexx Ekubo wrote an open letter on New Year’s Day addressing Nigerian youth and preaching tolerance and respect.

Alexx Ekubo published the nearly 400-word message on all his social media accounts—including Instagram, where he counts 1.5 million followers. The post has received nearly 75,000 likes at the time of writing.

In the letter, the actor referenced a number of issues that are the subject of people’s criticism or negativity, including being gay. Homosexual relationships are criminalised in Nigeria, and LGBT+ people are stigmatised and risk detention and imprisonment.

“Learn to live & let live, if a person wants to be gay, let them gay in peace, personally i’m NOT, have NEVER been, & will NEVER be, lets allow pple to be free & comfortable with their sexual preference, stop the name calling & shaming,” the actor wrote in the message.

Who is Alexx Ekubo?

Alexx Ekubo is a well-known model and actor who was first runner-up in the Mr Nigeria contest in 2010.

He has starred in several films and TV series in Nigeria, where the film industry is known as Nollywood, and was awarded two local film prizes as Best Supporting Actor for the film Weekend Getaway in 2013.

The actor has had his love life and sexuality scrutinised ever since his rise to fame, often fending off demands for him to get married. In a 2013 interview, he lamented what he called Nigerian people’s “crab mentality” of dragging each other down on their way to success.

“Look at most successful Nigerian entertainers, they were either tagged gay or Illuminati which I find weird,” he said, adding: “It is disheartening.”

“Let’s be more tolerant of each other, let’s respect our individual choices & decisions, let’s pull each other up, let’s forgive more, let’s spread love & kill hate.” — Alexx Ekubo

In his New Year’s Day message, Ekubo also asked people to have faith in God and have compassion towards others.

“If someone is having relationship/marriage issues, pray for them, advice them if you can & hope for the best, don’t fuel the fire, & encourage the breakup, honestly guys this is not cute any more we are starting to look like a bunch of sadistic, vile, bitter, angry set of pple to the rest of the world, we are constantly antagonizing each other & wishing failure on our selves,” he wrote.

“Oh! While i have you attention, can we stop with the pressure, stop putting undue pressure on pple to do things, be it marriage, carrier moves, child birth, etc.,” he continued.

He then encouraged people to adopt these attitudes as a New Year’s resolutions: “Pls what i’m trying to say is, lets be more tolerant of each other, lets respect our individual choices & decisions, lets pull each other up, lets forgive more, lets spread love & kill hate, we have always done the opposite & see where we are, lets try this in 2019 & see where it takes us.”