The US and Canada are often sympathetic to asylum applicants claiming to be fleeing their home countries due to sexual orientations.
PREMIUM TIMES
A Nigerian man, Peter Udo, who claimed to be gay, lied and presented fake documentation to US authorities to create a false impression that he fled Nigeria to avoid “public execution” because of his sexual orientation, PREMIUM TIMES can authoritatively report.
Mr Udo’s quest for asylum in the US moved from the American immigration system to a courtroom in 2022 after his application was denied. He had told authorities that he was caught in 2015 having sex with his boyfriend in a hotel in Ikot Ekpene, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria’s South-south.
Based on his claim, the US Court of Appeals, on 4 May 2022, ordered the country’s Board of Immigration Appeals to reconsider Mr Udo’s request for asylum. The court ruled that he provided convincing evidence that he would be tortured if deported to Nigeria.
The Board of Immigration Appeals is now rehearing his asylum request. The case is ongoing.
One of the documents Mr Udo filed with the US immigration agency is an ex-communication notice he claimed was written by the “Council of Traditional Rulers, Ukana Community” in Ukana Ikot Otu Village, which allegedly banished his family from the community because of his gay status.
“In accordance to our traditional code of conduct, your son Peter Donatus Udo has committed an offence under Section 2, Paragraph C, which states: That any citizen of this community found practising homosexuality, bisexual, transgender or any other related sexual act is subjected to public execution,” the fake document state in parts.
“On 16 April 2015, your son was caught practising this act and apprehended, detained for public execution, and he escaped.”
The purported ex-communication notice listed Mr Udo’s mother and five other family members and ordered all of them banished from the community until Mr Udo surrendered himself for “public execution.”
Mr Udo told authorities that a waiter who wanted to serve him breakfast in his hotel room at Sheraton Hotel, Ikot Ekpene, had opened the door without knocking and caught him having sex with a man, according to court documents seen by PREMIUM TIMES.
“The waiter screamed and called hotel security, which detained the couple and called a local ‘community security’ group to report the incident. The security group tied Udo and his boyfriend by their hands and legs, threatened to kill them for committing an ‘abomination,’ and took them away,” one of the court documents narrated.
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