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Officials of the Canadian immigration have rejected the asylum request of retired Nigerian police officer Wale Akinpelu and his wife, Ajarat Mojirola, citing his past corruption and human rights abuses in the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) as reasons for doing so.
This was revealed via a court filing released by the federal court in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, on Sunday, February 23.
Justice Norris had earlier denied the refugee status application of the Nigerian couple on Thursday, January 2.
The couple fled Nigeria in 2017, claiming that a criminal gang was threatening their lives.
Ajarat was the first to travel to the US in May 2017, and her husband followed in October 2017, shortly after resigning from his position with the Nigerian Police Service (NPS).
The couple moved from the US to Canada in 2018, seeking refugee protection and claiming they were at risk of harassment and attacks by a criminal gang.
Court documents revealed that the couple acknowledged Akinpelu’s former corrupt colleagues in the Nigerian Police had scores to settle with him.
This prompted the Canadian immigration authorities to swiftly suspend his asylum application.
The court filing read, “Mr 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.”
The foreign government split the couple’s applications into two, allowing the processing of Akinpelu’s documents while her husband’s request was put on hold.
The Refugee Protection Division (RPD) had earlier rejected Akinpelu’s asylum application in March 2019, citing inconsistencies in her claims for protection.
She then appealed the decision.
The Refugee Appeal Division (RAD) accepted her appeal and ordered a new hearing for her case.
However, the RPD once again rejected her asylum application in February 2023, reaffirming its earlier decision that she was neither a Convention refugee nor a person in need of protection, as she failed to credibly establish the key elements of her claim.
Akinpelu then turned to the court, arguing that the denial of her asylum was marked by procedural unfairness and unreasonableness.
However, Justice Norris stated that the RPD determined her application was based on documentary evidence provided by her husband, which contained numerous inconsistencies.
The judge reiterated the RPD’s findings, stating that Akinpelu had fabricated false documents to back her asylum request.
Adding that, “The RPD found that the applicant’s husband’s narrative in which, for the most part, the applicant had simply adopted as her own was not credible.”
The RPD determined that Akinpelu was not a credible witness, citing numerous inconsistencies and contradictions in her testimony, evolving statements, and reliance on multiple fraudulent documents created specifically to support her claims.
Akinpelu’s allegations that her father-in-law, her husband’s first wife and daughter were killed in an attack lacked proper evidence.
When asked to clarify the inconsistencies, the police officer’s wife provided a ‘vague, rambling testimony’ and claimed she was unaware of any discrepancies because her husband had obtained the evidence.
The RPD noted that Akinpelu showed no willingness to ask her husband to clarify the contradictions in the documents and felt it would be pointless to press her further on the matter.
When Canadian immigration authorities raised concerns, they quickly realized it was an exercise in futility.
As a result, the judge dismissed Akinpelu’s request for judicial review and indicated that standard deportation procedures would soon begin in her case.
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