Ben Sesay, the protagonist from the fictional nation of Songhai in Western Africa, is plunged into a turbulent odyssey in the United States that could have ended badly. Without valid immigration papers, Ben finds himself laying low in Syracuse, where debates with his pan-African friends position him as the minority, conservative viewpoint. In his mind's debate with itself, Ben walks on a lonely road that he knew he must take, in order to build an African nation that no one will ever mess with again.