Asylum

A Memoir and a Manifesto

Edafe Okporo

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781982183769
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

A "moving…dramatic" (David Ebershoff, New York Times bestselling author of The Danish Girl ), and urgent call to action for immigration justice by a Nigerian asylee and global gay rights and immigration activist Edafe Okporo. On the eve of Edafe Okporo's twenty-sixth birthday, he was awoken by a violent mob outside his window in Abuja, Nigeria. The mob threatened his life after discovering the secret Edafe had been hiding for years—that he is a gay man. Left with no other choice, he purchased a one-way plane ticket to New York City and fled for his life. Though America had always been painted to him as a land of freedom and opportunity, it was anything but when he arrived just days before the tumultuous 2016 Presidential Election.Edafe would go on to spend the next six months at an immigration detention center in Elizabeth, New Jersey. After navigating the confusing, often draconian, US immigration and legal system, he was finally granted asylum. But he would soon realize that America is exceptionally good at keeping people locked up but is seriously lacking in integrating freed refugees into society. Asylum is Edafe's "powerful, eye-opening" (Dr. Eric Cervini, New York Times bestselling author of The Deviant's War ) memoir and manifesto, which documents his experiences growing up gay in Nigeria, fleeing to America, navigating the immigration system, and making a life for himself as a Black, gay immigrant. Alongside his personal story is a blaring call to action—not only for immigration reform but for a just immigration system for refugees everywhere. This book imagines a future where immigrants and asylees are treated with fairness, transparency, and compassion. It aims to help us understand that home is not just where you feel safe and welcome but also how you can make it feel safe and welcome for others.

CHAPTER ONE Growing Up (and Coming Out) in Nigeria

When I was nine years old, my teacher asked me to join the debate team. “Why me?” I asked. I knew being the only boy on our class’s debate team would put a target on my back—that it would only uphold my classmates’ belief that I was too feminine. So I continued to refuse my teacher’s proposition to join, while my teacher continued to enumerate reasons why I should: “Edafe, you argue with your classmates all the time.” She saw in me, early on, a quality I would not come to recognize in myself for many years: a conviction in my beliefs.

My closest friend in primary school was a girl named Gloria—we sat close to each other in class and tried to answer most of our teacher’s questions. “Gloria and Edafe,” our teacher sometimes remarked when surveying the room, “this question is not for you.”

Gloria and I would walk home from school together, along with my elder sister Anita. My mum and dad sometimes sat in front of our veranda when Gloria and I passed by. Once, my mum pronounced to us, “Edafe, Gloria will be a good wife for you!” while I tried to hide the embarrassment coloring my face.

My father, on the other hand, is what you might consider a traditionalist. He believed that men were the heads of households, and he viewed marriage as an arrangement between parents for the children rather than something you did for love. He never understood why I was so close to Gloria; instead, he suggested I should concentrate on my education and spend time with the boys at school. Yet Gloria and some of the other girls in my class were the only people I could relate to. And Gloria was the only one of my friends who had the courage to stand up to our classmates when they would call me a “mama’s boy” or when the other boys accused me of behaving like a woman. In Nigeria, gender stereotypes and roles were strongly adhered to—a boy who was close to girls in the classroom and spent a lot of time with his mother was an atypical picture of masculinity. I wasn’t brave enough to tell my dad or anyone else that I was being bullied by the boys in my class. I worried he would only see this as a weakness, a flaw—that I wouldn’t grow up to be a true African man who could accept responsibilities and care for his family.

I knew that being the only boy on the debate team would make things harder for me, but I convinced myself that my classmates’ mockery came from a place of jealousy. They would have loved to be in a position of representing the class; however, they would never do so at the expense of their egos. Yet Gloria kept remarking how nice it would be for us to compete together. So, for her, I finally agreed to join.

Our class was made up of about sixteen people, and when class was over, the debate team waited behind for practice. The team was made up of four people: three girls and me. We were put into pairs—Gloria and I were partners—and our teacher told us she hoped we would not fail her. “No, Ma,” we’d replied. For months we practiced each day after school, debating topics such as the history of Nigeria, world leaders, geography, and government’s role in society. Our teachers chose topics that were controversial, but they abstained from politics. The goal of the debate was to build our confidence and give us a working knowledge of the world. But the best part of the debate team was that it would leave me with an invaluable skill—it gave us an edge in arguing for or against a point of view.

A week before the final debate competition was hosted at our school, we had a primary debate practice in class. It took the form of the actual debate set: our chairs were turned to face each other, with Gloria and I on one side, and the other two girls—Amaka and Faith—facing us. Our teacher sat in the middle, and the rest of the class was our audience. With our classmates in attendance, I felt an immense pressure to succeed—if I failed to debate well against one of the girls, the boys would certainly ridicule me.

The debate, which was more of a combination of debating and quizzing, had three sections, the first of which was in the form of a spelling bee, using English spellings; this was Gloria’s domain. The second round was world countries and capitals, my strong suit. After two rounds, though, Amaka’s group was leading. I had failed spelling two country’s names; I could hear boys in the class whispering already. Yet I tried to remain confident.

The third round was world politics and was structured as a debate. This was where Gloria and I stole the game. Our teacher asked, “Is Nigeria currently an OPEC state?” We buzzed quickly and answered with a confident yes. To my surprise, the audience roared when Gloria and I ascended. The class jumped out of their seats, chanting, “Edafe and Gloria! Edafe and Gloria!” Winning this trial meant Gloria and I would represent our school at the state finals. We might even be on the local news. This was a big deal.

I should have been afraid, but I no longer was. I felt only courage as Gloria and I continued to prepare for the quiz portion.

“Edafe,” she’d say in her singsong voice. “Tell me: What is the capital of Morocco?” Was it Casablanca? It must be, I thought. Gloria laughed. “No,” she said, smiling with dimples and flashing the gap between her front teeth. “Wrong answer.”

“So, tell me, what is the right answer?” I protested.

“I will not,” she said, and jolted into a laughing run. I chased after her until I’d finally caught her, both of us falling and panting on the ground.

“Okay, okay,” she said. “It is Rabat!”

I tried to argue with her—I was sure it wasn’t Rabat—but of course Gloria was right. She had a charm, a welcoming smile that made her never seem boastful of her competencies. I continued arguing with her over the correct answer on our walk home. By the time we arrived at my house, I was willing to admit she was right.

Weeks later, the final tournament took place in our school’s assembly hall—this was no longer an intimate class affair. More than one hundred students, teachers, and parents—though only my sister Anita was able to attend—filed into the hall as we heard the announcer’s boom from the prep room: “The final competition is here!” We were called to the stage, waiting behind the curtains for our moment. The urge to win coursed through me—my hands were sweating, my legs shook. It was then that I felt Gloria tap me and say, “Stop being afraid,” and wrapped her hand around my thumb. I could feel my fear morphing into something else: excitement.

We walked onto the stage to a roar of cheers from our classmates and peers, and took our places. We debated topics such as how Nigeria gained independence from Britain, and whether colonizers should have stayed longer. Should we adopt the UK prime minister and monarchy system of government or a democratic system? Though the debate lasted much longer, it felt as though it went by in a blink. The other two teams were more experienced, sharper and faster with their arguments. Unfortunately, Gloria and I lost, coming in third. We realized that our teacher had not prepped us properly for this kind of argument-style debate as much as she had for a spelling competition.

But any worries I had about being teased for debating with the girls were quickly dispelled—it turns out my mates were proud of me for representing the boys in the class. Afterward, our teacher led us to a cozy reception where our classmates waited. They stood and cheered for me and Gloria when we walked in, treating us as if we’d won. I locked eyes with my sister Anita, who beamed at me with pride. Though when I arrived back home, I was met by my father on our veranda, wearing a solemn face—after all, we had still lost.

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I grew up in Warri, a city in the Southern region of Nigeria. We referred to ourselves as “Waffairians.” We had our own lingua franca called pidgin English, which was a mix of English, Portuguese, and many other languages. Your mastery of pidgin English must be backed by bravado and guts. It was about a certain type of swagger. Men were fascinated with the Warri boy’s lifestyle, which was ascribed to people who used slang and did things in a certain way.

For instance, a true Warri boy does not back down from a fight or challenge. If someone pushed your chest, challenging you to a fight, people might chant, “You know who I be?” This was a way of asking the challenger to back down or face the pedigree of your street worth. Or they might just say, “You dey craze?” Which simply meant you were crazy to challenge a fight. If the person refused to back down, the challenger might have had to break a bottle with their head to show their strength.

These were the outrageous displays of masculinity that colored my boyhood. I wasn’t a true Warri boy. I did not engage in shows of strength; I did not use or relate to the slang. My dad, however, was a real Warri man. If we ran out of matches to light our stove, I’d suggest we ask our neighbors for a matchbox, but my father would refuse. He would rather be hungry than be seen as a man unable to care for his family. To him, masculinity meant not showing any form of weakness to anyone; not having a matchbox meant he was unable to be the man of the house. I remember the lyrics of the song “Gentleman” by Fela, about how being an “Africa man original” was more important than being a gentleman. Men should carry the weight of the home. Though there were strong religious overtones in our perceptions of male and female roles: a man could get married to more than one woman, as women were considered helpers to men. Fela himself married more than twenty wives. To stray from these perceived ideologies of what makes an ideal man was to question the foundations of our traditional African belief in the role of a man and a woman. These were part of the reason my dad was not happy I was so close to Gloria; he sensed I wasn’t being an “Africa man original.”

Where my father exemplified Nigerian norms for masculinity, my mother bucked tradition. I grew up the youngest of four children, with one older brother and two older sisters. Before I was born, she had two other children who died at age two due to illness; three years after my birth, my mother tried to give birth to another baby—my younger brother—who died at birth, too. I would remain her last born child. In turn, she was very protective of me. In Warri, parents live by the notion of sparing the rod spoiling the child. They believe beating a child is a way to keep them in check. Yet my mother never let anyone lay their hands on me. Instead, she motivated me to study hard and succeed; she bought me gifts such as a new lunch bag to encourage my successes in school.

Maybe my mother’s spoiling was to blame, but I had always liked being around women. My parents were not literate but worked full-time, so my dad’s younger sister, my aunt—Mrs. Erhimona—attended all school events and functions. She was a well-respected woman—the first person with a college degree in my extended family—who lectured at the petroleum training institute in Warri, which was one of the only petroleum institutions in West Africa. At home, when I wasn’t with my mother or my aunt, I had my two older sisters. My elder brother was eleven years older than me; we were not that close, and often the only people I could rely on growing up were my two sisters. I remember afternoons playing with Anita and her dolls, braiding their hair together and painting their faces. This was not, of course, how little Warri boys should spend their playtime. Around Nigeria, little boys were either working the farms with their fathers or in the workshop learning how to make money and provide for their future family.

My father was uncomfortable seeing me play with women all the time. “When will he start playing with the boys?” he would ask my mum. I used to enjoy playing soccer, but the boys’ chiding remarks made me dislike attending practice. “You play like a woman,” they would say, laughing at me. “You must enjoy touching all the girls you play with.” They would tease me and suggest I join the girls’ team instead, or that I wasn’t man enough to date women. Not playing soccer—something I loved—became an act of self-preservation.

I did not know then what it meant to be gay. I would not come to understand this part of myself for years. But I believe my father sensed my closeness to my mother, sisters, and other girls was a sign of me being different. However, I don’t think he understood that his son was gay, because he could not accept the notion that someone can be gay.

Our home was often unstable. When I was ten years old, my father was having financial troubles; he did not have a formal education; he could not get a job for the government, which pays a better salary; and he was involved in gambling. As a result of this hardship, we had to downsize to enable him to care for his family. He lost one of his most precious assets, his Toyota four-wheel-drive car, and could barely afford to feed our family or pay for our school fees. My mother was a full-time housewife for many years, and she had just started her new business selling drinks at a beer parlor. She had to bring in money to support my dad, who had been the breadwinner of the family. There is a lot of stigma surrounding a woman running this sort of business; my mother was public-facing to unmarried and married men who would wind up drunk at her beer parlor at night, but we were all dependent on my father, who could no longer care for the entire family.

A few months into this financial crisis, my elder brother Obatarhe got admitted to Delta State University but could not pursue his education because we could not afford to send him to college and feed the family. So he joined my mother’s business and offered more protection for my mother at night. The business was growing, and there was an opportunity for him to become the head of it if it flourished. My brother experienced some cash flow during his time co-running my mother’s business and his girlfriend at this time became pregnant. No higher education for him—he would become a dad in his early twenties. He eventually got married, leaving our house for good. My eldest sister, Ovoke, left for Ghana to live with her then boyfriend and now husband, Emmanuel, not long after; and when Anita became pregnant as a teenager, my father banished her from his house. Anita moved in with her boyfriend. Outside our home, Warri itself was riddled with fear of gang violence and wars between the major tribes. For a few more years before I would leave home, it was just me, my dad, and my mum. Mum would always say I was their only hope left of having a child that would go to college.

There is an African belief that a child is shaped by community; we are not solely the responsibility of our parents alone. This, the idea of needing to “man up,” and to further my education, were the reasons I was sent away at twelve to live with Mrs. Erhimona—my father’s youngest sister—and her husband. She was a devoted Christian, an educated lady, but had no children of her own at this time, only a stepson. My parents believed she could dedicate her time to care for me and give me an opportunity for a better life beyond our broken home and troubled city. Even my overly protective mum knew this was the right decision. There was no future for me in Warri. In the news, there had been reported incidents of a militia group from the Niger Delta who were kidnapping foreign government officials and large corporate employees. They were already recruiting boys my age. It would be hard to leave Gloria behind, but we all knew this was an opportunity I had to take, like it or not. An opportunity to a brighter future, with the God-fearing Mrs. Erhimona.

Mrs. Erhimona was a short, chubby lady with a broad smile and an unrestrained laugh—she reminded me of my mother, empathetic and caring. At that age, I trusted her judgment—that the choices she made for me would steer me toward the right direction of holy uprightness. As a Nigerian woman, born in an era with almost no women earning an education, she graduated top of her class, studying industrial chemistry at the University of Benin. She was a pioneer, an idol. I wanted to be like her in every virtue she displayed as a religious person, an educated woman, and a pseudo mother.

My aunt had made some preparation for my arrival. Mrs. Erhimona was living with her husband and her stepson in a three-bedroom apartment. For the first time, I would share a room with only one other person, and I would have access to a private bathroom—which was not what I grew up with: back home with my parents we had a communal bathroom, which can expose someone to communicable diseases, so this was a step up for me—and a big living room, also an upgrade for me and another reason why I would trade any freedom I would have for this opportunity. In exchange for these accommodations, I would have to attend Sunday Bible study, religious services, and evening group meetings with her. She took her religious events seriously, and as a result, the church became a bigger part of my community as well. At the close of each service at St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Warri, she would hang out with her friends and her friends’ children in the parking lot, waiting for the cars parked in front of them to move along. This is where she introduced me to other kids who were going to boarding schools, as she tried to prepare me for my path ahead. She knew what to do to get me into a good school, and I was admitted into an all-male boarding school called Unity Model Secondary School in Agbarho. The school was only a few miles away from my family, but I was terrified. It was an all-boys school, and boys had always been my tormentors. My family reassured me that going to a boarding school was an opportunity for me to learn how to care for myself. Maybe I would even make some friends, they suggested.

The school was a large compound closed off by two gates. Palm trees exactly six feet apart lined the mile-long roundabout in front of the principal’s office. When I arrived, we were told that for the first time ever, the school was also admitting girls. I was terrified to leave the comfort of my aunt’s home, but she reminded me that she went to a boarding school in a nearby town where she learned all of the life skills that helped her build a life and career. Didn’t I want that too? She gave me some pocket money and promised more would come each month. She left, driving through the roundabout as I stood with the matron, waving.

The matron asked me to take my bag and follow a senior student who was assigned to give me a tour of my room. He walked me around and showed me my bunk bed, helped me set up my mosquito net, and gave me a key to my locker. I was given a pair of bedsheets and a pillowcase, then was left alone to arrange my stu...