A Nigerian woman has been granted asylum in the United Kingdom after deliberately joining the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
The 49-year-old Nigerian, whose name has been kept under wraps, became involved with IPOB after she was denied asylum in Britain eight times.
Pulse reports that though the Nigerian government has designated IPOB as a terrorist organisation, the UK and other foreign countries are yet to categorise the group as such.
The woman in question arrived in the UK in 2011 but joined IPOB in 2017 “to create a claim for asylum,” a judge said.
Gemma Loughran, the UK upper tribunal judge, ruled that due to the woman's affiliation with IPOB, she has a ‘well-founded fear of persecution’ in her home country, Nigeria.
This was after the Nigerian argued in court that she was worried about being arrested at the airport and disappearing if she returned to Nigeria.
However, Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philip condemned the judgement, describing it as a “comically ludicrous” interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights.
A lower tribunal judge initially rejected the woman's claim because there was no evidence supporting her activities within the group.
Judge Iain Burnett ruled that the woman joined IPOB solely “to create a claim for asylum,” a decision that the upper tribunal judge overturned.
The upper court supported its argument by stressing that the woman would likely be identified as an activist upon her return to Nigeria.
“It is clear from the country's background evidence that the security services act arbitrarily and arrest, harm, and detain those it believes may be involved with IPOB without conducting an assessment of the extent of their involvement or their motivation,” She ruled.
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