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After appearing on the programme, the girl — together with her mother — faced deportation back to Zimbabwe after their asylum application was turned down. Faced with deportation, the girl makes shocking claims that if she was deported back to Zimbabwe, she would be put before a firing squad by President Mugabe. After the statement, she lost the majority of her supporters, especially in the UK. In this article, Alex Magaisa analyses why asylum-seekers tell tall tales.

SO Gamu Nhengu is now a villain, eh? So the voice that made angels weep with joy has suddenly transformed into mutterings of a crazy girl?
My fellow Zimbabweans never cease to amaze me but the hypocrisy attending to this young girl’s case is most astounding. I am surprised at the hubris that is being thrown in her direction in the wake of reports in the News of the World, a popular UK Sunday tabloid, quoting her allegedly claiming she faces a firing squad were she to be returned to Zimbabwe.
Let me take a slight detour by way of an anecdote.

A few years ago, I was approached by a solicitor at a London-based law firm. He asked if I could act as an expert witness in a case that he was handling on behalf of a Zimbabwean. She was a young woman seeking asylum in the UK.

I asked for relevant documents todetermine if I could perform the role in that case. She had lived in the UK for five years. All but six months were illegal because she had overstayed her leave to remain. She had come to the UK as a visitor and like most had done before and would do after her, decided to stay, believing the grass to be juicier in these isles.

The story that she presented and details of which I was expected to bear witness was like nothing I had ever heard before. The documents that were presented, including the police report — a copy allegedly obtained from the Zimbabwe Republic Police (“ZRP”) — bore little resemblance to anything that I had ever seen before in my time in legal practice. In short, I was not in a position to be an expert witness in that case because doing so would have jeopardised the young woman’s case for I could not vouch for the authenticity of the documents that had been presented or indeed the story that was scarcely believable.
It wasn’t the first time that I had faced such circumstances and was certainly not the last. On each occasion where I had doubts, I politely declined the invitation to stand as an expert witness. Otherwise, any desire to assist a countryman in difficulty would have caused me to lie to the court and that would have been unethical and would affect my professional standing.

In my time, I have received many requests for assistance and on asking for further details, I have often been told, “Ah, mukoma, izvi ndezvekungotsvaga mapepa izvi (My brother, this is just a story to support my application).” In other words, the story is a creation of one’s imagination for no other reason than to support an application for asylum to enable one to stay in the UK. Some people have said it’s heartless to refuse assistance but the ethics of my profession do not permit. The point is, in my observations regarding UK-based Zimbabweans facing desperate situations, “creativity” has often been a necessary tool in their bid to get “papers”.
For those people to stand up and point an accusatory finger at Gamu Nhengu is an exercise in hypocrisy.
This is not to suggest that there is authenticity in what young Gamu has allegedly said (allegedly because the story is a product of tabloid journalism, by the way). No, not even to condone it. It is to say, very simply that what she has done is no more different to what thousands of her countrymen and women have done in the past and continue to do faced with the prospect of deportation to a life of desperation and few opportunities.
Do I understand her? Yes, I do, the same way I understand many in her situation.
Do I sympathise with her? Yes, I do just like I do with others’ similarly placed.
Is it true that there could be a firing squad waiting for her in Zimbabwe? Plainly, that is far-fetched and I do not know where that tall tale came from but I do wonder if those were Gamu’s words or the words churned out of her inexperienced and vulnerable mouth by a tabloid journalist.

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What disappoints me most is the reaction (lavish in its sense of disgust) of fellow Zimbabweans, some of whom have probably obtained the coveted “papers” on the basis of creations of their imaginations and if they haven’t, they surely know at least one relative, one friend, one associate or acquaintance who has done the same. They have done it because they are desperate, not because they hate Zimbabwe or because they really fear for their safety in that country. They have done it because they seek better lives in the UK.

Indeed, if asylum allowed them to go home occasionally whilst retaining their stay in the UK, they would be happy to visit home from time to time. No one knows what they have told the UK authorities because their names do not attract the glare of the national media let alone public attention of any sort. That, if anything, is the difference between the Gamu story and the stories of many Zimbabwean asylum seekers.
The question that ought to be asked is what drives otherwise decent people to do this? It’s desperation but what facilitates this? It’s the system, stupid!

Foreigners and Zimbabweans in this instance have sassed out the system or at least, they think they have and have probably gotten away with it in many cases. The system understands one language — the language that characterises Zimbabwe as a hostile and oppressive place; a hell-hole in which everyone is suffering terrible lives; in which people are eating their mothers and children.
It is a language that says sending anyone to Zimbabwe is inhuman and callous. That’s because, according to this language, there is a monster there called Robert Mugabe, who allegedly has an army of ruthless and blood-thirsty vampires who will jump at anyone. According to this language, Zimbabwe is the worst place on earth.

So what you do if you are facing deportation to Zimbabwe but you would rather remain in the UK? Survival instinct directs you to speak the language of the system. Say “I will be lynched by a vicious mob as soon as I step on Zimbabwean soil” and Walla! the “papers” come swiftly, so long as you can back it up.
And many have done it. Many continue to do it. Many more will do it. Many do it not because they believe what they say or care about what that might do to anyone; they do it because the basic human instinct of survival commands them to and more importantly, because they know the system accepts that language.

It is a system that has said since 2005 that failed asylum seekers will not be returned to Zimbabwe. This is why when the UK Fact- Finding Mission went to Zimbabwe recently, to determine the conditions in the country, many Zimbabweans who may be affected by those findings have been worried. That’s because any finding that suggests positive developments and stability in Zimbabwe would be potentially detrimental to their continued stay in this country.

Today, some of those people or relatives or friends of those people are condemning Gamu. Yet Gamu is no exception to this rule.
She has simply done what others have done. Her weakness is that she is now a famous young girl. Actually, she has just the public face of the Zimbabwean asylum-seeking community.
And if there is anything that’s wrong, look at yourselves and those around you; look at the system that is susceptible to exploitation, one that tabloid papers have joined in to exploit in this specific case so that Gamu can stay in Britain. These are the same papers that are so anti-immigrants, let alone illegal immigrants, but Zimbabweans who condemn Gamu don’t seem to see the politics here.
The tabloids have taken up the Gamu cause, a contrast to their usual position on immigrants and what better story to back up a cause than to say Bambi will be shot if we kick her out.
Gamu has become Bambi, and who will throw her out to the wolves after this?

Give this young girl a break. She is a desperate and vulnerable. She has become a pawn in a bigger game.
I have not been in her position so I don’t quite know how it feels but I like to think many who stand accusing her of lying today have some idea of the desperate circumstances and should know better that desperate circumstances can drive even a decent, beautiful and talented girl to do something considered by others to be nothing short of crazy.
Would I be an expert witness in her case?

Probably not, for the same reasons I refused to stand witness in the case I stated earlier. But do I understand her tactics? Well, the system allows it and for as long its view of Zimbabwe remains the way it is, this will not be the last case.

Presumably my fellow Zimbabweans would say, “aiwa azonyanyawo kunyeba” (she has over-exaggerated), as if it’s better to have lied less. — Newzimbabwe.com
Alex Magaisa.is a Zimbabwean lawyer based at the Kent Law School in England.