Alaska Life

Expired visa nearly costs writer a seat at his own play

Playwrights everywhere nurture the same dream: to see a live performance of their work. So when Out North decided to stage a production of his full-length historical drama "The Black Cockerel," Waisu Ademola Bello was elated.

Elation became consternation when, a few weeks before the show's opening, he was arrested for having overstayed his visa and sent to a detention center in Tacoma to face possible deportation.

Now out on bond, he reflected Thursday on how he got in such a situation and described a convoluted, troubled path stretching from Africa to Alaska.

Born in Ibadan, Nigeria, Jan. 31, 1973, Bello studied African history at that city's university. After graduating in 1998 he went to the northern part of the country to teach school. There, a 14-year-old student who was being forced to marry a 77-year-old man came to him pleading for help.

"She thought that, because I was born a Muslim and because I was a teacher, I would have some authority to speak to her father about it," Bello said. He knew it was a long shot, but said he would try. "She gave me her picture and said, 'If it doesn't work, keep this and pray for me.' "

It didn't work. The marriage went through with the approval of local authorities. Islamic fundamentalist Shariah law is enforced in this area. "I was so disgusted that I wrote a play about it," Bello said.

That play, "Bondage," was produced with local actors in the heavily Muslim region and Bello was soon attacked by militants. They held a gun to his head, he said, and accused him of abandoning the faith.

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They stopped short of killing him. But Bello knew he had to leave the country. After 10 months, he got a visa and, in 2001, arrived in America, where he had relatives.

Once here, he appears to have received some bad advice about immigration rules.

" 'Don't apply for asylum,' they told me," he said. " 'They'll just send you back right away.' " Others urged him to enter into a marriage of convenience, but he didn't feel comfortable doing that.

The visa expired and what to do about it sort of went to the back of his priorities. "I make no excuses for it," he said apologetically.

BUST IN FAIRBANKS

In the meantime, he was reveling in creative and educational opportunities. He had a play read at the Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Valdez and won a prize for it. He received a fellowship at New York University and became the first African in that school's MFA in Dramatic Writing program.

Last fall, hoping for a staging of his work in Juneau and the possibility of a job in Fairbanks, he came to Alaska. Aside from the upcoming production of "The Black Cockerel" in Anchorage, nothing worked out. But he spent the winter in Fairbanks, working on a play and a novel, spending his time at the public library and the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

It was expensive, but all seemed well until UAF campus police, acting on an assault complaint against him, ran his name. They discovered his visa had expired long ago. (Bello said the assault accusation is unfounded. A search of online state court records show no charges have ever been filed under his name in Alaska.)

A campus officer came to his apartment and was met by Fairbanks police. The diminutive and mild-demeanored Bello, who can be mistaken for a child at first glance, felt his chest tighten as the police pulled out their guns and perused his manuscripts. They cuffed him and took him to jail where, he said, he overheard one official quip, "We'll deport him to his jungle continent by Friday."

That didn't happen. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service didn't have the resources in Fairbanks to even house him, so they sent him to Anchorage. He flew alone in his street clothes and turned himself in to an immigration official who met him at the airport.

But Anchorage also lacks detention facilities for people charged with immigration offenses. So he was housed at the Anchorage jail, "With criminals!" he said with a tone of alarm. He shared a room with four other men and slept on the floor until he could be transferred to Tacoma.

Again he flew alone, without escort, cuffs or prison clothing. "I'm not considered a flight risk," he said; he's not likely to skip back to Nigeria any time soon.

He found conditions at the Tacoma detention facility an improvement over Alaska jails. Better quarters, better food, better medical attention, better access to legal counsel, better company. Though some of his fellow detainees were being deported due to felonies, most had only violated immigration laws.

It took a couple of weeks before an aunt in New York posted bond for him. An asylum hearing was set for later this year or early next, and he was free to return to Alaska.

Not a moment too soon, said Vivian Kinnaird Melde, who is directing the play. "It's exciting to do a new play, but it's important to have the playwright available," she said, "especially when you're trying to understand the cultural backdrop."

SAGA OF CORRUPTION

"The Black Cockerel" is drawn from historical events at the time of Angola's civil war. Warlord Jonas Savimbe, hoping to gain support from the U.S. government, orders his dubious aide to assist American agent Jack Abramoff -- the same later implicated in congressional lobbying scandals -- to make connections in apartheid South Africa so that Abramoff can make an action movie. (Abramoff's film, "The Red Scorpion," starring Swedish hunk Dolph Lundgren of "He-Man" fame, is available on DVD.)

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It's about charismatic and corrupt men and the abuse of power, Melde explained. Betrayal, coercion, kidnapping and killing fill every page. Yet the language is unfailingly polite and genteel -- like Bello himself.

That confused the American cast, Melde said. "Ademola (the playwright seldom uses his first name) had to explain that, in Africa, that's the way it is. The culture is very deferential to people with authority."

While Bello has, for the time being, found an accommodation with American authority and will be here for the play's run, his situation remains tenuous. As of last week he was staying at a hostel in Spenard, hoping to find a house-sitting gig. His manuscripts and just about everything except the clothes on his back -- picked up at Value Village -- are still stuck in Fairbanks.

The experience may turn into its own play or novel someday. For the moment, though, the writer has an idea for a story in which a visitor to America falls in love with a Mormon who wants him to convert -- before meeting the family at Christmas.

"It's set in Alaska," he said.

Find Mike Dunham online at adn.com/contact/mdunham or call 257-4332.

By MIKE DUNHAM

mdunham@adn.com

Mike Dunham

Mike Dunham was a longtime ADN reporter, mainly writing about culture, arts and Alaska history. He worked in radio for 20 years before switching to print. He retired from the ADN in 2017.

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