Deported, but still hankering after Athlone

More than eight years on from their controversial deportation from Athlone, Iyabo Nwanze and Elizabeth Odunsi are still struggling to deal with the emotional and psychological wrench of being expelled from a town they had begun to call home. Catherine Reilly visited the women in Nigeria:

A picture of a cityscape titled 'Lagos – a Mega City’ sits on the floor of Iyabo Nwanze and Elizabeth Odunsi’s lodgings in Lagos.

It reflects ambitious plans to rehabilitate the infrastructure of Nigeria’s chaotic commercial capital but progress will be slow in this largely impoverished metropolis, of perhaps 20 million souls, where children are amongst the street hawkers and traders work late under lanterns, in a city that never sleeps as it cannot afford to.

The former Athlone residents have lived in Lagos, Nigeria’s biggest city, since their controversial deportation from Ireland over eight years ago. Memories of Athlone have diminished little with the passage of time.

“We accepted Athlone as our home. It was quiet, peaceful, loving,” says Iyabo Nwanze reflectively. “It was friendly and peaceful,” adds Odunsi.

Their living quarters today comprise of a small section in a house - provided by a kindly friend who they knew in Athlone and which displays the usual features of accommodation in Lagos: there are bars on the windows to discourage armed robbers, no running water (Lagosians typically have to use boreholes and buy water) and a TV set that is often redundant due to a shaky electricity network that the government is seeking to overhaul.

The sands of time stop for no-one. Odunsi’s three eldest children are now grown and do not live at home (the space is “not conducive”), although Segun, now aged 19, did stop by during this reporter’s visit.

“Life has been really difficult,” says Nwanze, “but all thanks to God, because God had been so good to us, our kids and our families.”

The women do “odd jobs” to make ends meet and are still dealing with the emotional fall-out that came with deportation “The kids still refer to Ireland as home,” says Nwanze, “… they brood, they cry, they get angry.”

There remains a lot of hurt and even years onwards Michael McDowell’s name is spoken of by the children. Revisiting this time is not easy for either woman and there is upset. There are tears.

On March 14, 2005, Odunsi and Nwanze had reported to Athlone Garda Station in what, they say, was a routine “signing on” visit with which people at risk of deportation must comply. Their applications for asylum and leave to remain on humanitarian grounds had been rejected and each arrived at the station with their youngest child (Odunsi with son Bolu and Nwanze with son Israel) as the other four children were still at school. They were detained, their mobile phones withheld and they were taken to the Willow Park estate to pack.

Odunsi’s daughter, Ayo, a fifth year pupil at Our Lady’s Bower Secondary School, heard about the gardai’s presence at Willow Park. She left the school and was never seen again by her teachers. Officers from the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) later arrived at Our Lady’s Bower, with a distressed Odunsi in tow, and created an unseemly commotion that “stunned” the now principal Noel Casey. “I still remember that sense of, my God, what is happening here?”

Nwanze was deported without one child (Emmanuel) and Odunsi without three (Ayo, Junior, Segun), with the GNIB claiming the women had orchestrated a separation to halt events, an allegation which they denied. Nwanze says it would be two years before their remaining children left Ireland, where they had been in the care of the Nigerian community in different localities, she says.

The immediate aftermath saw well-attended protests in Athlone and Dublin, while media attention extended to the fabled pages of Time Magazine. Yet before all of these extraordinary happenings was years of hope and uncertainty beginning at the Lissywollen asylum seeker centre, where the two women lived after arriving in 2001, before moving to the Willow Park estate.

In another sitting room – in Monksland – some of the women’s church friends cast their minds to this time, when the solidarity they found in faith and friendship made an uncertain future easier to bear.

“We started a church – the first African Pentecostal church in Athlone, Christ Apostolic Church Outreach,” explains pastor and bus driver Joshua Olufemi-Ojo. “So these ladies,” he gestures around the room, “including Iyabo and Elizabeth, were the pillars of the church. Elizabeth Odunsi happened to be the first women’s leader and Iyabo Nwanze was in the youth department and also assisting the ladies in the women’s wing. The church started very well, on a good note, with Pastor Peter Amujo.”

Like all asylum seekers, Odunsi and Nwanze were barred from entering employment. But they participated in a Vocational Training Opportunities Scheme (VTOS) in Athlone and were considered personable and kind by fellow students and their teachers. One of the latter was Emily Young, whose late husband Frank, a hugely respected agriculturalist, would be such a key figure in the campaign to bring them back. 

Meantime, an odd dichotomy had emerged as to the immigration fates of Nwanze, Odunsi and friends. In the early 2000s, non-EU nationals who had an Irish citizen child (at a time when citizenship by birth was automatic) could withdraw from the asylum process and seek residency. A number of Nwanze and Odunsi’s friends benefited in this fashion.

“When I came here, we had an Irish born, and on that basis we got residency and eventually got naturalised,” says Olufemi-Ojo. “The ladies in question, they were single mothers… back then, in 2001, if they had an Irish born, today they would be Irish citizens as well. We had Irish born and it was the grace of God that we enjoyed.”

Funmi Okodugha remembers the pair as principled women. “They were just hoping on God that things would work out for them, considering that they had come into a very different environment, thousands of kilometres away to start a new life. They wanted to start on a good note, they wanted to start afresh, and they put all their efforts into integrating into the society, doing courses, up-skilling themselves.”

The events of March 2005 took these church friends by surprise and they were appalled to hear what had transpired at Our Lady’s Bower. “We were disturbed,” reflects Olufemi-Ojo, “we were highly disturbed.”

Austin Berry, mayor of Athlone at the time, was also troubled by events. He supported the campaign to bring them back.

“For months and months, there was a big discussion about it,” he remembers. “It was the case that there was a huge amount of people who talked about them in a positive and good frame of mind.”

Back in Lagos, the thought that – perhaps – a time may come when they will be allowed to return to Ireland still crosses the minds of Odunsi and Nwanze. They wish for it; they hope for it. They know, in their heart of hearts, it would take something extraordinary.

Every year, when mid-March arrives, they think about it more than usual and Nwanze agrees it is like an anniversary, one “that brings us bad memories”.
Sneering comments from some GNIB officers, who promised them they would never see Ireland again, are remembered. They were treated “like thieves”, says Odunsi.

On arrival in Lagos, they were taken to the notorious Kirikiri Prison where they stayed for hours until being “bailed” out. “In my life I’ve never felt so humiliated,” says Odunsi. “I had never seen, I’ve never seen since then, and I would never see that place again in my life.”

The support they received from people in Athlone lifted their spirits and is something they would never forget. They later saw press clippings that documented the protests and petitions that their supporters engaged in.

“I was overwhelmed,” says Odunsi. “I said, 'wow’.”

In particular, they remember the late Frank Young with huge respect and affection. “He was a wonderful man, and we can’t forget him. God bless his memory,” says Nwazne.

“All of our teachers, all our friends, the indigenes, the people who came out in numbers, thank you and we love you.”

Catherine Reilly visited Lagos, Nigeria to discuss life for people post-deportation in a journalism project supported by the Mary Raftery Journalism Fund. Her project material can be accessed on the website of The Irish Times, www.irishtimes.com