Following the exit of United Kingdom
(UK) from the European Union (EU), a Nigerian Lawyer based in the UK and
a solicitor of the Supreme Court of Wales and England, Charles Ete has
warned that more Nigerians staying in the UK illegally or whose visa had
expired faced deportation.
Addressing journalists after the
Business Law conference in Abuja, Ete noted that most Nigerians had
relied on the European Convention on human rights article 8 to escape
deportation even after the expiration of their visa, stressing that with
the exit of the UK from the EU, the law which was an EU law
domesticated by the UK would no longer be effective.
According to him, “there are a lot of
Nigerians living in the UK and sometimes they have to go through a lot
of trouble to try to get their papers. As a lawyer in the UK, I
represent a lot of these clients trying to get their papers.
“In the UK there have been a lot of
situations where the government has been trying to remove or deport some
nationals because they don’t have their papers sorted; either they have
overstayed or they are there illegally. Illegally in the sense that
they went with perhaps student visa and it was for certain number of
years and that year has passed and they have not been able to renew
their papers. So they have overstayed.
“Some of them try to regularise their
stay while others don’t. They take the risk of finding a job and living
there. The effect is this, for those who are there illegally, or
overstayed, when they are caught up with, and maybe the government wants
to deport them, there is this European law called the European
Convention on human rights article 8 and that article deals with respect
for family and private life.
“It has been a tool in which we have
used to stop a lot of deportation. Because simply, the government wants
to deport somebody and maybe the person has a family for example in the
UK. Maybe he has a child who was born there or he has stayed for some
time and has developed certain roots. What that law says is the
government must respect the family life of that person. By doing that,
it stops a lot of deportation”.
That was a European law which the UK domesticated,” he said.
Ete emphasised that more Nigerians
seeking Visas to the UK might find it difficult, while calling on the
Nigerian government to create the enabling environment and some
incentives that would attract Nigerian professionals in the diaspora to
return home and invest.
He stressed that most Nigerians in
the diaspora were worried about the insecurity back home and urged the
government to also improve information to Nigerians outside the country,
adding that some Nigerians abroad wanted to return home but were not
sure where to begin.
Ete pointed out that the issue of
insecurity, corruption and power supply was impeding free flow of
business. He said many foreign investors were worried about the spate of
kidnapping in the country, urging the government to do more to improve
security.
(c)ThisDay
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