In June 2000, Positive Action in Housing organised a delegation of MSPs (including Malcolm Chisholm and Shona Robison), a BBC reporter and a Sunday Herald Journalist to see the living conditions of asylum seekers at the YMCA Glasgow Red Road flats.
Hundreds of asylum seekers were forcibly dispersed to Glasgow, and the YMCA had a lucrative Home Office contract. At the time, around 220 families and 80 lone men and women from 33 nationalities were settled in Glasgow. That number was expected to rise to 6500 over the next nine months.
The YMCA management offered a tour to dispel rumours about ill-treatment. Local GPs began reporting their concerns about malnutrition amongst some asylum seekers housed and fed by the YMCA Glasgow. They were given just £10 a week and one bar of soap, toilet roll, and long-life milk.
During this tour, we went past a room where several people were playing snooker. Here I first met 36-year-old Eniola Adewale and his friend, Mohammad Asif.
Others in the group were reluctant to give their full names for fear of repercussions their family members may face at home. Eniola took the risk and spoke up and told us what it was like living at the YMCA.That was the start of Eniola’s fearless campaign for human rights for refugees in Glasgow.
Eniola Adewale Haastrup was the first of three children born to Mr Adebayo Haastrup and Mrs Lydia Haastrup. He graduated in 1991 from the University of Lagos, where he studied Industrial relations and personnel management and graduated in 1991. He worked at the Peoples Bank as a manager at the Oyingbo branch in Lagos.
Eniola left Nigeria in April 2000 after being tortured for campaigning for democratic rights, and family members were killed. He was one of several asylum seekers who spoke to a cross-party Parliamentary meeting at Edinburgh in July 2000; Eniola delivered an emotional appeal to MSPs stating:
“Many of us have been attacked because we are asylum seekers – we have that tag on our heads wherever we go. We are not beggars. We want to contribute as long as we are here.’”
He called on MSPs to take action over conditions in their temporary accommodation, which make them feel like ”prisoners”. He said the YMCA accommodation was ”ridden with problems” because of the unsuitable diet and meal times, causing people to lose weight. Residents were also forbidden to have visitors.
Eniola and others organised a petition accusing the YMCA of treating refugees like ”prisoners”. They described as ”incomprehensible” the decision to place four women – including one who is pregnant – and two children, aged eight and nine, among 90 men in the Red Road building. The petition also criticised the then Home Secretary Jack Straw’s plans to tighten immigration rules further. It concluded: ”The new laws introduced by the Government concerning refugees and asylum seekers seem to portray us as undesirable people, rather than respectable people running away from persecution in various countries.”
A few days after the parliamentary event, in August 2000, Eniola received a letter from the Home Office informing him that the YMCA no longer wished for him to remain in their accommodation. He was to be moved from Glasgow to Leicester. He felt he was being victimised for speaking out on behalf of fellow asylum seekers.
Eniola said: “We stated at Parliament that we merely wish to be treated as human beings. We presented a petition signed by over 70 asylum seekers from the YMCA. The MSPs had kindly listened to us, and for the first time, we felt that we had a voice. We have all escaped murder, torture and abuse of our human rights, and many of us escaped to this country because we believed British Democracy and Justice to be the best in the world. I never expected that I would be victimised for merely joining others to talk to representatives of this democracy.”
On 15 September 2000, the Scottish Parliament passed a motion stating :
“Parliament believes that the recent removal of Nigerian asylum seeker Eniola Adewale to Leicester and the subsequent rejection of his asylum application because he has consistently campaigned in Scotland for decent living conditions for asylum seekers and against the climate of racism, abuse and ignorance confronting asylum seekers; believes that the treatment Eniola has received amounts to an abuse of human rights and his freedom of expression and an abuse of Scottish hospitality; calls upon the Home Secretary to revoke his rejection of Eniola Adewale’s application for asylum immediately because his deportation to Nigeria constitutes a grave risk to his life and liberty, and agrees to support Eniola’s appeal against deportation”.
His appeal took place on the 27th of September, and he won his case.
I often went to Dungavel to meet people on suicide watch. On one occasion, I was helping a Nigerian gentleman on a suicide watch. Eniola agreed to come along; he made this man remember he was not just “an asylum seeker” and that he had something to fight and live for and could rise above the indefinite detention he was being subjected to in Dungavel. Eniola made him laugh at his predicament and decide not to give up.
Eniola married his long-time partner Omowunmi in 2006. In 2012, he moved to London, where he passed away on 26 December 2016. He attended Church regularly. He was buried in Linn Cemetery, Glasgow. He leaves behind one son Daniel Adeniji Haastrup.
https://www.forevermissed.com/eniola-adewale-haastrup/#lifestory
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12183856.asylum-seekers-in-fear-urge-action-from-msps/
http://spacers.lowtech.org/freepeople/eniola.html
https://archive.parliament.scot/business/businessbulletin/bb-00/bb-09-15f.htm