In a recent setback for Mosunmola Awonuga and her three children, Canadian authorities have denied their asylum request after discovering spelling errors in the name of Nigeria's major opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), on their supporting documents.
Ms. Awonuga, represented by Jacqueline Ozor of Law Ville Professional Corporation in Toronto, Ontario, had based her asylum application on alleged persecution by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) for her active involvement with the PDP. She also expressed concerns about the potential forced female genital mutilation her daughters might face.
However, Canadian immigration authorities determined that the claims were "clearly fraudulent," citing discrepancies in the spelling of the PDP's name on the submitted documents, including a membership card, stamp, and support letter.
Despite applying for a judicial review of the denial, Ms. Awonuga's request was dismissed.
Officials from the Canadian government found it puzzling that her PDP-issued membership card from 2012 spelled the party name as "People Democratic Party" while the stamp inside it read "Peoples Democratic Party" without the letter 's.' This inconsistency was deemed unreasonable for a major political party in Nigeria, especially in a country where fraudulent documents are prevalent.
Additionally, the Refugee Protection Division (RPD), responsible for granting or denying asylum requests in Canada, noted that the party name was spelled as "Peoples' Democratic Party" (with an apostrophe) both in the header and contents of the Letter of Support. The RPD ruled that this further discrepancy raised suspicion regarding the authenticity of the documents.
When questioned about the spelling errors, Ms. Awonuga's response that she was unaware of the mistakes, but was only noticing them now, did not alleviate the court's concerns that the documents could be fake.
Her explanation that the party might have made the spelling error on the stamp was considered weak and untenable.
Ms. Awonuga's counsel argued that Canadian standards should not be applied to non-Canadian documents, citing that Nigeria, as a "third world country," may have printing errors on their official papers. They deemed it unreasonable to hold innocent citizens accountable for such mistakes.
However, the RPD maintained that it was reasonable to expect a major political party to spell its name accurately and consistently in its own documents.
Justice Go, overseeing the case, reprimanded parties and decision-makers of other countries, urging caution to avoid errors that might suggest a lack of competence in producing professional documents.
Justice Go echoed previous judgments in similar cases, distinguishing between misspellings in government stamps or letterheads and spelling errors within the body of a document. She affirmed that the RPD acted reasonably in deeming the documents "fraudulent."
The justice justified Ms. Awonuga's asylum denial by pointing out discrepancies such as the police report being issued in Lagos while the applicant claimed to be living in "Akura (sic)." These contradictions impacted the overall credibility of the application.
Furthermore, Justice Go questioned the extensive verbatim similarities between the police report and Ms. Awonuga's Basis of Claim (BOC). Certain sentences, such as the mention of "diabolical powers (voodoo powers)" used for hypnotizing and performing circumcision on children, appeared in both documents.
Ms. Awonuga's explanation that she was already in Canada when the police report was issued was deemed insufficient to account for the precision and word-for-word similarity between the two documents.
The ages of Ms. Awonuga's children in the police report from 2017 remained unchanged in the BOC drafted in 2020.
Justice Go emphasized that Ms. Awonuga failed to provide a reasonable explanation for the numerous striking similarities
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