A Judge in Canada, Henry Brown, has granted asylum to Lukmon Owolabi Shoyebo after he claimed the Presidential flagbearer of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, attempted to kill him in Lagos for switching allegiance to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2015.
Shoyebo, a former APC youth leader, disclosed that he incurred the wrath of Tinubu and another member of the party for switching to PDP in 2015, a time when the APC needed his support to overthrow the PDP.
Also, Shoyebo claimed that there was an assassination attempt on him on November 18, 2015, which resulted in the death of two people at his office and his relatives were targets of vicious attacks.
The application presented to the Judge stated: “The family claims refugee protection because they fear persecution from a powerful political figure in the All Progressive Congress (APC) and a chief in the Ogboni cult, due to the PA’s (principal applicant) political opinion.
“They also allegedly fear an elected APC member of the Federal House of Representatives for the Mushin II constituency who has in the past joined forces with the Ogboni chief in attempting to harm the PA.”
Though Tinubu’s name was not mentioned in the redacted court document, The Gazette, a mainstream media platform in Nigeria reported that it gathered from reliable sources in the Mushin area of Lagos that the APC presidential candidate is the “powerful political figure” and “a chief in the Ogboni cult” that Shoyebo accused of the assassination attempt.
According to the narration given by Shoyebo, his defection to PDP made APC lose many youths who followed him to the PDP. He stressed that the defection marked the start of harassment and death threats against him and his family members.
The document added that: “He claims that starting in March 2015, he faced repeated threats. Then on November 18, 2015, the PA claimed he escaped an attempt by one of the agents of persecution through other individuals to kill him at his worksite. Two of the PA’s colleagues were killed during this attack. The applicants claim they later learned that both AOP had been attempting to harm the PA.”
Shoyebo revealed further that “his relatives have also been targeted since, and that all these events were sponsored by the two APC affiliates mentioned.
His initial request to appeal the rejection of his asylum application was not honoured as the police did not validate or deny the attack on his life as purported. A Canadian doctor could not also connect the injuries he sustained to “political activism.”
However, the Judge in a recent ruling made the assertion that the inability of the police to confirm or deny the attack on Shoyebo did not invalidate his claims, especially since he made it known he filed a police report to alert the authorities.
The Judge asserted further that the doctor could not have established whether the patient’s injuries were triggered by an “improperly motivated attack” since the doctor was not present. He made it known that the medical reports do not need not establish the reason for the attack.
After revisiting why Shoyebo’s initial request was declined, Brown concluded that the earlier decision was “procedurally unfair” and granted the application for judicial review.
As things stand, a differently constituted panel will reconsider the application of Shoyebo, his wife and two daughters for asylum in Canada.
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