Canada set to deport Nigerian migrant rights leader Olukunle Adetunji

Nigerian migrants rights leader Olukunle Adetunji is set to be deported from Canada despite many attempts to regularize his status.

Nigerian migrant rights leader Olukunle Adetunji faces deportation from Canada despite repeated attempts to regularise his status, The PUNCH reports, citing Canadian outlet CityNews.

Adetunji first visited Canada in 2012 and stayed, marrying his wife, Kimora, in 2014. He was deported to Nigeria that same year and spent two years there before allegedly returning to Canada by illegal means in 2016.

He and his wife then decided he would apply to remain on compassionate grounds so the family could finally be together, but authorities arrested him. He was held at Maplehurst Correctional Centre for about a month, then moved to Lindsay, a facility in Scarborough and finally Toronto’s Immigration Holding Centre. He was later released while trying to regularise his status, but news of his planned deportation emerged recently.

CityNews reported on Wednesday that Adetunji considers the prospect of being sent back worse than being behind bars. He said he has been taken away from his three sons, whom he promised he would never leave, and that he cannot break that promise.

Adetunji said he has no family, no ties and no place to stay in Nigeria. “It’s like a death sentence,” he said.