She, therefore, refused to grant the request of Ogundairo on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, and a waiver on the Pre-Removal Risk Assessment (PRRA) notice. Pirie, who is a senior immigration officer, said, “It has been determined that you would not be at risk of persecution, subject to a danger of torture, or face a risk to your life or a risk of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment if returned to your country of nationality or habitual residence.
“Humanitarian and compassionate factors are assessed to determine whether an exemption from certain legislative requirements to allow your application for permanent residence to be processed from within Canada will be granted,” she stated.
Pirie said, “On 14 January 2014, a representative of the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration reviewed the circumstances of your request and decided that an exemption will not be granted for your application.”
The unfavourable judgment was delivered barely two weeks after President Goodluck Jonathan signed the new law, Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act, which banned and criminalized gay clubs, associations and organisations in Nigeria. According to the law, culprits risk maximum of 14 years imprisonment, while those associated with or witness such act could be jailed 10 years.
Ogundairo had expressed fear of arrest at the airport on arrival in Nigeria and going to jail should he be returned to Nigeria, stating that some homosexuals were arrested and arraigned in court last month in Abeokuta, his home town. Counsel to Ogundairo, Jack C. Martin, had urged that the refugee claimant should be granted permanent residence status based on the abundant facts that proved he was a bisexual man.
“The documentary evidence discloses a situation in which Adeyemi Ogundairo faces a reasonable chance of prosecution because of his sexual orientation if he is returned to Nigeria,” Martin explained in a letter dated January 6, 2013. Martin pleaded that “His claim is strong and is severable from the allegations involving his previously being sought in Nigeria that were rejected by the RPD.
He has presented credible and reliable evidence about his activities in Canada since his RPD decision, and credible and frightening evidence about the situation for gays like him in Nigeria today.”
Martin then declared: “I would ask that he be given Canada’s protection” But, the immigration officer refused and insisted that the applicant “bears the onus of satisfying the decision maker that his personal circumstances are such that the hardship of not being granted the requested exemption would be (i) unusual and undeserved, or (ii) disproportionate.”
“I have read and considered the RPD’s Reasons and Decision in conducting this assessment as the applicant has cited the same hardship in returning to Nigeria in the application at hand as indicated at the time of his refugee claim hearing,” Pirie said.
She maintained that the RPD panel, which earlier adjudicated over the matter, explained that Ogundairo’s testimony lacked credibility. “The applicant has not demonstrated that his personal circumstances are such that the hardships of not being granted the requested exemption would be unusual and undeserved or disproportionate,” the officer stressed.
“I have considered the issues presented by the applicant including: the personalised hardship due to discrimination and/ or adverse country conditions in Nigeria, personal relationships that would create hardship if severed; degree of establishment in Canada; and ties or residency in any other country,” she said.
Source: National Mirror
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