Onijah Robinson is on a mission.
When 33-year-old American citizen Onijah Robinson touched down in Karachi, Pakistan, in October, she expected 19-year-old Nidal Ahmed Memon to be waiting for her. Robinson and Memon had met online and agreed to get married. Robinson left her family in the Bronx, according to news reports, to be with him.
But Ahmed’s family didn’t agree to the marriage. So, he abandoned his online lover — some reports say that he vacated the apartment where he had told Robinson to meet him. Robinson was left stranded in Pakistan with an expired tourist visa. And that was just the beginning of her wild adventure.
It’s unclear how, exactly, this happened, but local social worker and philanthropist Ramzan Chhipa met and took an interest in Robinson’s case (the police may have alerted him to the American’s presence). Chippa now refers to Robinson as his “American sister.” He wasn’t the only local to help her out; a popular social media user, Zaffar Abbas, posted a video of Robinson clutching an inhaler in a hospital, which he captioned, “She could be your sister.” The governor of Sindh, Kamran Khan Tessori, extended the expired visa and reportedly got Robinson a flight home . . . which she refused to take. She instead ride-shared her way to Ahmed’s apartment building, where she sat, in a parking lot, for 30 hours before going to one of Chhipa’s shelters.
It is also unclear how, exactly, this happened, but somewhere along the way, Chhipa arranged for Robinson a press conference, ostensibly so that Ahmed would see her on the news and have a change of heart. At this point, things really took a turn.
See, Robinson had time to wander around Karachi. And she found it rather lacking. A modern woman familiar with the urban landscape of New York, Robinson felt confident enough to offer her services. So, during the press conference, she demanded that the Pakistani government cough up $100,000 for reconstruction efforts, which she pledged to oversee.
“My plan is to reconstruct this whole country. I am asking for $100k, [and] I need $20k by this week in my pocket in cash,” she said. “That’s a demand to this government. The government is going to fix up these streets. . . . It’s ridiculous out here. I do not like it. I need you guys to understand that Pakistan is in need of new buses, cabs, cars. Please listen to what I’m saying.”
Robinson also claimed in the presser that, actually, she is married to Ahmed. (This doesn’t seem to be true; it’s reported that an intelligence agency took Ahmed into custody recently.) Nevertheless, Robinson said that the couple has plans to “move to Dubai soon and have our babies in Dubai,” where she “will do real estate and my husband will own it in Karachi.”
“We will not live here, but we will get this done,” she declared at the conference, where she sat next to Chhipa. Reporters who asked for further information were shut down. It is against Robinson’s religion to tell other people her business, she said, and they should do a better job at minding their own. She did add, however, that Chhipa hadn’t done a good enough job running his charity and called for him to be locked up.
Robinson’s demands have changed over the weeks, but they always include a ridiculous sum of cash and the authority to “fix” Karachi. Pakistani press seem enamored with her, and there’s always a mic or camera in her face.
It seems like no one in Pakistan knows quite what to do with Robinson. A team from the U.S. consulate met with her and asked her to go back to America, but she didn’t want to, so she was allowed to stay. Locals have provided her financial help and hospitality. Pakistani men are proposing to her and calling for Ahmed and his family to be held accountable for abandoning the American. A man named Muhammad Ismail reportedly offered Robinson $5,000 and a new house. She is now said to be returning home to New York (who knows if that’s true?) and has launched a crypto coin. After she went viral and was branded the “Queen of Pakistan,” Robinson said “to clear the air,” that “anything that you hear that’s not true, that’s not true.”