Canadian immigration authorities have denied the asylum application of a retired Nigerian police officer and his wife.
Wale Akinpelu and his wife, Ajarat Mojirola, were denied asylum over the retired police’s previous employment under the Nigeria Police Force —with a reputation for corruption and human rights violations.
Justice Norris of a federal court in Ottawa, Ontario, on January 2, rejected the refugee status request of the couple who fled Nigeria in 2017 and claimed that a criminal gang was after their lives.
Court filings showed that the retired police officer’s wife was the first person to travel to the U.S. in May 2017 and was later joined by her husband in October 2017 “shortly after quitting his job as an officer with the Nigerian Police Service.”
The couple left the U.S. for Canada in 2018 and immediately sought refugee protection, asserting that they were in danger of being harassed and attacked by a criminal gang.
Court filings showed that the couple admitted that Akinpelu’s former corrupt colleagues at the Nigeria Police Force had “scores to settle” with him, in a statement that led the Canadian immigration authorities to immediately suspend his asylum request.
Akinpelu’s asylum application was subsequently denied “on grounds of violating human or international rights due to his past employment as a police officer in Nigeria”, with a judicial review of the matter upholding the denial.
The couple’s applications were separated into two to allow the processing of Mrs Akinpelu’s documents while her husband’s request was suspended.
The Refugee Protection Division (RPD) later in March 2019 rejected Mrs Akinpelu’s asylum application, having found loopholes in her claims of needing protection, a verdict she appealed.
The Refugee Appeal Division (RAD) granted her appeal and ordered a fresh hearing of her case.
In February 2023, the RPD again denied her asylum upholding a previous decision that she was “neither a Convention refugee nor a person in need of protection because she had not credibly established the core elements of her claim.”
Mrs Akinpelu then went to court to seek redress, claiming her asylum denial reeked of procedural unfairness and unreasonableness.
But Justice Norris said the RPD found that her application was predicated on the documentary evidence provided by her husband, which was riddled with inconsistencies.
The judge reiterated findings from the RPD stating that Mrs Akinpelu fabricated fraudulent documents to support her asylum request.
“The RPD found that the applicant’s husband’s narrative (which, for the most part, the applicant had simply adopted as her own) was not credible,” court filings showed.
The RPD adjudged Mrs Akinpelu as not being a credible witness “due to the abundancy of inconsistencies and contradictions in her evidence, evolving testimony, and relying upon multiple fraudulent documents created specifically to bolster her allegations.”
Mrs Akinpelu’s claims that her father-in-law, husband’s first wife and daughter were killed in an attack were not properly substantiated.
When questioned to clarify inconsistencies, the police officer’s wife gave a “vague, rambling testimony” and said she was not aware of any discrepancies because her husband was the one who obtained the evidence.
The RPD said Mrs Akinpelu did not show any willingness to ask her husband to clarify the contradictions in the documentary and that “it would serve little purpose to belabour these issues in questioning” her.
When the Canadian immigration authorities raised some concerns, they soon realised it was an “exercise in futility.”
Consequently, the judge dismissed Mrs Akinpelu’s request for judicial review, with the standard deportation protocol on her case starting soon.
[Peoples Gazette contributed to this report.]
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