A NIGERIAN woman, who claims she is in danger of being sacrificed by a village chief she refused to marry, failed yesterday in a court fight to be allowed to remain in Scotland.
Funke Olubiyi, 34, had sought asylum from Chief Oba, who is twice her age and has several wives, and said he had spiritual powers and would be able to find her if she were returned to her African homeland.
Immigration officials accepted that she mADVERTISEMENTight be at risk, but decided she could escape the chief by relocating to another part of Nigeria. Ms Olubiyi presented new evidence, but a Court of Session judge ruled yesterday that there was nothing in the fresh information to justify a second look at her case.
The court heard that Ms Olubiyi arrived in the UK in March 2006, leaving behind her fianc�, Kayode Olubiyi, and gave birth to their son, Joseph, six months later. Her application for asylum was refused by the Home Office, and the case went before an immigration judge. The judge was told that Ms Olubiyi’s father and Chief Oba, head of their village in Oyo state, south-west Nigeria, wanted her to marry the chief, and were determined that it should happen.
The immigration judge held that Ms Olubiyi would not be safe in returning to her home area, because she would be forced to become wife to Chief Oba, and that would amount to persecution. However, he decided that she and her fianc� could relocate within Nigeria without undue difficulty.
He said it was a very large country, with an estimated population of 137 million, and with a number of large cities. Ms Olubiyi protested that the chief had spiritual powers and the influence to find her anywhere in Nigeria, but the immigration judge authorised her removal, and she and her son were detained.
Arrangements to return them to Nigeria were put on hold, when her solicitor submitted a fresh claim for asylum based on new information in letters from Ms Olubiyi’s fiance and his aunt, and a police report of an attack on the aunt’s shop.
They said attempts by the chief, said to be a well known and wealthy politician in the area, to track down Ms Olubiyi had become the “talk of the town” and the attack had been carried out by his armed “thugs”. It was further explained that he was head of a cult and he had put down Ms Olubiyi’s name “in their occultism as person to sacrifice in appreciation of his new position in the ungodly society”.
The Home Office said it did not accept that what had been submitted amounted to a fresh claim for asylum. Ms Olubiyi’s lawyer asked the Court of Session to set that ruling aside.
Lord Menzies said the issue was whether the fresh information was relevant to the question of Ms Olubiyi’s possible relocation within Nigeria.
“None of the material appears to me to be relevant. It suggests that Chief Oba is still interested in finding her, and it suggests that he may be prepared to instruct others to use violence towards people whom he perceives to be connected with her,” said the judge.
“However, there is nothing to suggest that his influence extends outwith the village or area in which she formerly resided, and where Chief Oba is chief. There is nothing which would undermine the reasoning of the immigration judge.”