My name is Martha Laraba Sambe. I am a researcher, writer, and spiritual practitioner from Southern Kaduna State, Nigeria, currently based in Germany. My work addresses the complexities of liberation by exploring the intersection of systemic structures and spirituality.

For over a decade, I have worked at the intersection of the political and the spiritual, two areas often seen as separate but deeply connected in my experience.

The Systemic (Research & Advocacy): As an economist, development researcher, and former columnist, I analyze the structures that shape our collective reality. My work includes archiving queer language in Nigeria with Obodo and Kampnagel, researching South-South migration, gender-based violence, and electoral processes, and planning programs and advocating for women’s sexual and reproductive health. My research seeks to address the invisibility of marginalized groups by using data as testimony for making the unseen visible within imperialist structures that aim to devalue and thus erase certain groups.

The Sacred (Wellness & Spirituality): I have found that systemic change is incomplete without spiritual sovereignty. Through Spring of Wellness (SoW) and my work as a medium, I support a return to spirit-centeredness, with an emphasis on Traditional/Indigenous belief systems. I advocate for an animist perspective that recognizes the spirit in all things. For the African diaspora and other indigenous groups, returning to our Spirit-centers is more than wellness; it is a radical act of reclaiming identities that have been violently erased through encounters with various colonizing entities.

The Creative (Testimony): My memoir, Dear Bode: What the Fire Gave Me, brings these worlds together through a series of letters exploring trauma, queer identity, and spiritual transcendence. I write because storytelling bridges the gap between being “hands for the imperialist machine” and retaining sovereignty as whole human beings with memories and histories that predate the modern world and its classifications of who and what a human is and ought to be.

The Invitation: I am a multi-hyphenate by nature and a collaborator by design. Whether through academic research, performance, or spiritual guidance, my goal is to foster meaningful dialogue around the difficult topics that define our lives and time.

I invite you to explore these pillars with me as we bridge the gap between the mundane and the mystical to find what it truly means to be a spirit having a human experience.