A man who worked for the military regime which ruled Nigeria during the 1990s has lost a High Court bid to overturn a deportation order.
Adegboyega Gabriel Adesina Okenla (43) had brought the case on grounds that he was denied access to legal advisers in order to challenge the deportation order of January 2003. He was deported on March 8th without having had an opportunity to challenge the order, he claimed.
Mr Okenla, who used a number of names interchangeably and held three passports, entered Ireland in September 1999 and applied for asylum, which was subsequently refused in late 2002. He was arrested in March 2003 and detained at Cloverhill Prison before deportation on March 8th.
He admitted serving as a special assistant and private secretary to Nigeria's chief security officer during the unpopular regime of former Nigerian president Sani Abacha.
Mr Okenla, who amassed significant wealth in his own country, said his role was to submit the names of the then president's opponents to Strike Force, a group of select soldiers with a record of brutality, who eliminated opponents by killing them.
After he was detained Mr Okenla changed the firm of solicitors he engaged to deal with his asylum application. His new representatives met him the day after he was arrested and sought to obtain a copy of his file. However, the authorities told the new lawyers that they could not provide Mr Okenla's file without his written consent.
It became available on the evening of Friday, March 7th, but the new solicitor did not become aware of this until after the weekend during which Mr Okenla was deported, the court heard.
In his judgment rejecting the challenge, Mr Justice John MacMenamin said he was satisfied Mr Okenla "never asked his solicitor to challenge the lawfulness of the detention order which he now seeks to impugn". It was open to Mr Okenla to instruct his former solicitor to provide the relevant files to his new representative, the judge added.
"It was the applicant himself who chose to instruct another solicitor and who opted not to instruct solicitors who were familiar with some aspects of his case and who had processed his asylum claim," the judge said. This change should not have prevented him from challenging the order.
Mr Okenla had acted in bad faith and his interactions with the State "were designed to mislead and deceive in such a way to gain rights and benefits to which he was not lawfully entitled", the judge ruled.