Nigeria Rejects Deportee From Britain : Private Jet Carrying Isa Muazu Denied Landing In Lagos

Nigeria Rejects Deportee From London: Private
Jet Carrying Isa Muazu Denied Landing In
Lagos
A British government attempt to deport a ‘near
death’ Nigerian asylum seeker, Isa Muazu, was
thwarted on Friday after the Nigerian
government denied the chartered private jet
rights to land.
The private jet, hired at huge cost to the British
government, returned to the UK, from Malta,
with Mr. Muazu after hours in the air, sparking
backlash against the UK government.
Mr. Muazu was bundled out of the medical
wing of Harmondsworth detention centre,
amidst protests calling for his release, on Friday
for the flight to Nigeria.
Protesters from the Stop Deportations Network
closed Harmondsworth detention centre, earlier
on Friday, in an attempt to stop Mr. Muazu’s
deportation, with one man supergluing himself
to the gates of the detention centre. The man
was eventually arrested at 7a.m. by a
specialist police team who took several hours
to remove him.
Mr. Muazu, said to be only skin and bones fat,
has been on hunger strike for 100 days, to
protest UK’s refusal to grant him asylum. His
medical team declared him unfit to fly or be
kept in detention, while rights groups
condemned the British government’s
desperation to remove him from UK.
Mr. Muazu entered the UK on a valid visa in
2007, but decided to remain in the UK for fears
he will be killed by Boko Haram, whom he
claimed had killed several of his relatives. After
seeking asylum he was put in fast track
detention, and his claims expressly rejected.
Mr. Muazu’s lawyers told the BBC he had been
returned to the medical wing at Harmondsworth
detention centre since returning from the failed
deportation.
‘End of life plan’
Before arriving the Harmondsworth detention
centre, near Heathrow airport, Mr. Muazu had
health conditions including Hepatitis B, kidney
problems and stomach ulcers. He complained
that the highly processed food served to
detainees was worsening his medical
conditions but UK detention officials dismissed
him as “behaving like a child”.
In October, his physical and mental health
deteriorated. His medical team declared he was
unfit for detention and edging towards death,
but rather than release him, UK immigration
officials drew up an ‘end of life plan,’ an
alternative to deporting him.
A British High Court and the Court of Appeal
also declared Muazu’s detention lawful, ruling
that the UK Home Office had the right to
remove a man who its staff accepted was close
to death and for whom an ‘end of life plan’ had
been drawn up.
But Mr. Muazu would not take a deportation. “I
feel devastated. I’d rather die than go back. If
they can take my body and bury it, that would
be the only thing. I’m not going back, I’m telling
you. There’s nothing there for me,” he told Vice
Magazine’s Simon Childs and Lord Roberts of
Llandudno who later started an e-petition
calling for his release.
The ‘end of life’ plan included allowing him die
on his mattress in his detention room.
Expensive deportation
Apparently, the UK government would not have
an asylum seeker on hunger strike die in its
detention centre. An expensive deportation
plan, which included hiring a private jet, was
drawn up.
The UK Home office hired a private jet, with
flight number EDC684, registered with Air
Charter Scotland Ltd, the aviation firm that flew
Mary J Blige to Lagos, in September. The firm
also manages the private jet of British business
mogul, Lord Sugar.
The UK Home Office had planned to deport Mr.
Muazu on a Virgin Atlantic flight but the plan
was called off a night before. Rights
campaigners said their pressure forced Virgin
Atlantic to back down.
Campaigners also attempted to pressure the
private jet company to decline the offer to fly
Mr. Muazu to Nigeria. Protesters from Unity
Centre Glasgow and Student Action for
Refugees gathered outside the company’s East
Kilbride offices Thursday afternoon, but the firm
went ahead to execute the deportation.
Campaigners said it must have cost the British
government between 100 to 188 thousand
Great British Pounds to execute the failed
deportation.
“How can you spend that much deporting only
one person when he is not even a criminal?”
Jasmine Sallis, a volunteer caseworker at the
Unity Centre in Glasgow said. The Unity Centre
have been at the forefront of campaigns to free
Mr. Muazu.
The aircraft model used in executing the failed
deportation, rights campaigners suspect, is a
Legacy 600, the same model of aircraft used in
deporting radical preacher, Abu Qatada, to
Jordan. Mr. Qatada’s deportation was
estimated to have cost the UK Home Office
over 50 thousand Great British Pounds.
The UK home office is closed till Monday, while
the Nigerian aviation authorities could not
explains reasons for the plane’s inability to land
in Nigeria.
Yakubu Datti, the spokesperson of the Nigerian
aviation industry, told PREMIUM TIMES he
would make enquiry and revert. He is yet to do
so as at the time of publishing this.
Human Rights
UK’s desperation to deport Mr. Muazu cost it
both public funds and social capital. Human
rights campaigners condemned UK
government’s hardline stance to deport the
asylum seeker, saying he might die in the
process.
Late November, over a hundred NGOs, actors
and lawyers wrote to The Guardian to demand
Mr. Muazu’s release.
“Like Isa, many feel that their asylum claims
have not been fairly heard and that they are
losing their freedom only for the “crime” of
seeking safety in the UK,” the signatories said.
“We are extremely concerned that Isa may die
as a result of a hardened stance being taken
towards migrants in the UK. We urgently call for
clemency in this case. We ask that the home
secretary reconsider Isa’s case and act quickly
to release him in the UK, so that another death
in immigration detention can be avoided.”
Mr. Muazu is not the only person on hunger
strike in the asylum detention centre. Unity
Centre claim there are at least three other men
in the Medical Centre at Harmondsworth
detention centre on hunger strike in the same
ward as Mr. Muazu with possibly more hunger
strikers in other wards at the detention centre.
“One of the men started his hunger strike on 5
November,” the Unity Centre said.