A Nigerian Home Office worker ‘married’ his own
daughter to get her a British visa, The extraordinary scam
was apparently executed by Jelili Adesanya while ministers
turned a blind eye.
Mr Adesanya, 54, has lived here for more than 30 years and
holds a British passport, but wanted his daughter, her
husband and their four sons to join him from Nigeria.
He faked a wedding ceremony complete with a photograph of
the happy ‘couple’ which helped fool immigration officials
that his daughter, Karimotu Adenike, was really his wife.
Miss Adenike, who is in her mid-30s, was duly granted
permission to live in the UK.
The pair are waiting for her to be granted a permanent right to
remain before they undergo a quiet divorce and attempt to
bring the rest of her family here.
It is expected she would try to remarry her real husband to
get them all visas.
But despite being tipped off two years ago, the Home Office
seems to have done nothing to stop the scam by one of their
own workers.
Until recently, Mr Adesanya was employed as an
occupational health nurse for the Home Office, working with
immigration officials at Gatwick airport.
A whistleblower sent letters to the High Commission in Lagos
and the UK Border Agency including specific details such as
names, addresses, passport numbers and even a copy of the
wedding photograph.
When there was no response, he sent emails to then Home
Secretary Jacqui Smith and ministers Vernon Coaker and Phil
Woolas on February 1 this year. He heard nothing.
Mr Adesanya, who came to Britain in 1976, flew back to
Nigeria on May 29, 2007, and held the bogus wedding
ceremony a few days later at a register office in Ikorodu,
Lagos.
A source said: ‘They paid people to attend the wedding so
that the British High Commission in Lagos would believe it
was genuine. The commission then gave Karimotu Adenike a
two-year settlement visa in October 2007.
‘On her settlement visa application form, of course, she did
not mention that she already had a husband and four children.
‘The date of birth on her Nigerian passport is not her real date
of birth.’
Miss Adenike is believed to have aged herself by ten years on
her wedding certificate to disguise the age gap with her
father.
Although her settlement visa expired last month, she is
hoping to be given the right to remain.
David Burrowes, the Conservative MP for Enfield Southgate
and Shadow Justice Minister, was also tipped off by the
whistleblower and wrote to the Home Office.
This time there was a reply, but it said that although the
matter was ‘under investigation’, no further information
would be provided because it could ‘breach of our
obligations under the Data Protection Act’.
Mr Burrowes told the Mail: ‘I am very surprised and
concerned that no action appears to have been taken, because
the allegations are extremely serious.’
Mr Adesanya, who lives with his daughter in Dagenham,
Essex, vehemently denied the plot and said he had never been
questioned about the allegations.
He said: ‘Married my own daughter? I have never heard
anything like this in my life. I deny it. She is my wife, not my
daughter.’
However, asked to confirm his ‘wife’s’ date of birth, he said
he did not know without checking her passport, and refused
to allow her to speak for herself.
Unbeknown to him, his daughter had confirmed the
arrangement when she told a friend she would shortly apply
for her own British passport and ‘divorce daddy’.
Last night Jonathan Sedgwick, from the UK Border Agency,
said: ‘These individuals are already under investigation, and
I want to make it clear that abuse of our immigration laws will
not be tolerated.
‘If we identify marriages which we believe are not genuine,
we will challenge them and prosecute where appropriate.
‘We are determined to send home any foreign nationals
convicted of these types of crimes once they have served
their sentences.’
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