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A 29-year-old gay Nigerian man named Udoka Nweke is being detained at the Adelanto immigration detention facility, California since December 2016, after popular claims he was attacked by an anti gay mob in Nigeria. Nweke then fled his native country, made an arduous, traumatic trek through South and Central America before reaching the United States via the San Ysidro port of entry, where he surrendered himself. Long trek Adelanto Detention Centre, a privately owned facility is about two hours northeast of Los Angeles. Condition within this detention facility is compared to that in the prison. Detainees there say they receive minimal, substandard medical care. And the quality of life and care is very poor. From within detention, Nweke’s several plea for asylum has been denied, even after he attempted suicide and became schizophrenic because judges believe his testimony contained internal contradictions and inconsistencies, rendering him ineligible. These intricacies and difficulties brought Nweke's case very huge attention and one of such from Ola Osaze. Osaze is Nigerian, transgender, and queer. He had won his asylum case in Californis and is the national organizer of the Black LGBTQ Migrant Project. Osaze introduced Nweke to Monica Glicken, who now stands as Nweke's attorney. Glicken on the contrary believes many of these perceived 'inconsistencies' to Nweke's story as detected by the judge can be attributed to errors in translation that made it difficult for Nweke to understand the questions asked of him. For decades, Glicken said, asylum seekers would customarily be released from detention facilities on parole after they successfully demonstrated “credible fear” about returning to their native countries but that has changed under the Trump Administration Many other Lgbt network organisation and activists have petitioned for Nweke’s release on parole so he can access lifesaving medical treatments. Otherwise, they fear Nweke’s condition will worsen Together in the fight for Nweke's release on parole and asylum grant, Glicken and Osaze have gone on to agree that haven done nearly all, the best hope for Nweke may be the possibility that public pressure and media attention could compel ICE to grant him parole. "Nweke’s asylum appeal may take a long time" Osaze said, and the outcome of that case is far from certain but could be positively affected “if we organize and make a lot of noise.” ** And that's the crux of my interest in this story, as one Nigerian based Ally has gone interestingly far with this 'noise' by making this intelligent and very detailed history of the anti gay story of that anti gay politically charged Nigerian bill. Watch the politics, the pastors talking from both sides of the mouth; saying what God never meant, the cameras, the dark humour narrative. This video is dedicated to Udoka Nweke. Checout video, titled ‘Make Nigeria Gay Again’, produced DedHed Media, a Lagos-based digital media group. As celebration of LGBT Nigeria pride, DedHed Media is offering to train females and non-binary persons who are interested in Digital Art such as comics, animation and illustration. Visit their website at http://dedhedmedia.com learn more.
