The High Court has confirmed the revocation of a Nigerian man’s refugee status, finding that material information he gave to asylum authorities was false or misleading and decisive in the original grant. The court affirmed the Minister’s decision under section 21(1)(h) of the Refugee Act 1996, a ground the Minister had not relied on when revoking the status.
The appellant, Patrick Adebisi Olusegun Adegbuyi, had been granted refugee status in July 2007 after claiming he faced threats and attacks in Nigeria linked to legal disputes with a university colleague. The Minister revoked that status in December 2010, relying on grounds relating to return to Nigeria, re-establishment there, and changed circumstances.
This was a statutory appeal, not a judicial review. The court said it could consider evidence that was not before the Minister and could affirm the revocation on a different statutory ground. It considered the record before the Minister alongside later material, including information about the appellant’s travel, work and residence in Nigeria.
The court identified inconsistencies concerning an undisclosed Nigerian passport, its UK and US visas, and the appellant’s travel dates. It also found conflicts between his account of leaving Nigeria in January 2007 and later statements about his role in his daughter’s life from infancy. The court said the passport stamps and other evidence undermined his account of being in Nigeria during events he had described as part of his asylum claim.
The appellant argued that his trips to Nigeria were to pursue legal cases, that he continued to face threats, and that the Minister had not shown effective state protection had become available. The court accepted that there was no evidence of identified changes in Nigerian state protection of the kind relevant to the Minister’s changed-circumstances ground. It also held that the ground concerning voluntary re-availment of national protection did not apply once he had returned to Nigeria.
However, the court concluded that the evidence supported revocation because information supplied to asylum authorities was materially misleading and decisive to the grant. It affirmed the revocation under section 21(1)(h), finding the declaration void from the outset. The court said the other grounds were neither appropriate nor necessary to its decision.