A Nigerian actress and model, known only as OO, who sought asylum in the United Kingdom, will have her case reheard after an immigration judge ruled that the initial decision was flawed.
The woman, who has been granted anonymity, claimed her public profile and political activism placed her at risk of harm upon returning to Nigeria. According to Mail Online, she filed a protection and human rights claim in November 2021, which was initially refused by the Home Office a year later.
The essence of her claim centered on her role in the 2020 protests:
“The essence of [her] protection claim… was that she has a well-founded fear of harm on return to Nigeria because she coordinated and attended a demonstration in October 2020 in support of the ‘End SARS Movement’.”
She further argued that her celebrity status and local political lineage enhanced her risk:
“The consequent risk to her safety is enhanced by the fact that she is a well-known model and actress in Nigeria and the daughter of a local politician.”
The initial denial was partly based on her admitted misrepresentation of her salary on her UK visa application form. However, Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge David Kelly identified an error in law, noting that the previous judge failed to analyze the evidence as a whole, including external country information related to the End SARS protests.
Judge Kelly explained the requirement for comprehensive evidence analysis:
“It seems to me to be axiomatic that a fact-finder must not reach his or her conclusion before surveying all the evidence relevant thereto.”
He used a metaphor to stress the importance of combining evidence:
“Just as, if I may take a banal if alliterative example, one cannot make a cake with only one ingredient, so also frequently one cannot make a case, in the sense of establishing its truth, otherwise than by a combination of a number of pieces of evidence.”