He is young and dashing, flamboyant and often mingles with celebrities but Nigerian born Pastor Tobi Adegboyega whose church was shut down over an alleged £1.87 million fraud could be facing his greatest fight yet.
An immigration tribunal has ruled that Tobi 44, the cousin of John Boyega, the Star Wars actor, should be deported back to his native Nigeria after investigations, including by The Telegraph, exposed misuse of funds by his church.
Mr Adegboyega was head of SPAC Nation, a controversial church shut down after failing to properly account for more than £1.87 million of outgoings and operating with a lack of transparency.
He claimed deportation would breach his right under the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) to a family life – having married a British woman. He also said the attempt to remove him by the Home Office failed to take account of his community work with SPAC.
Presenting him as a “charismatic” community leader of a large, well-organised church, his legal team claimed that he had “intervened in the lives of many hundreds of young people, predominantly from the black communities in London, to lead them away from trouble.”
He claimed his work had been “lauded” by politicians including Boris Johnson and senior figures within the Metropolitan Police, although no testimony by them was submitted to the court. He said that without his personal presence in London, projects that he had masterminded would fall apart or reduce in size.
According to UK’s Telegraph, the tribunal was told the Home Office contended “all is not as it seems”.
“Various manifestations of [Mr Adegboyega’s] church have been closed down, by either the Charity Commission or the High Court, because of concerns over its finances and lack of transparency,” according to the judgment.
Former members of the church including some parents in Lagos have told BusinessDay how they fought to extricate their children from the church after hearing tales of woes and extortions. Some have alleged that it is a cult, in which impoverished young people are encouraged to do anything they can to donate money, including deceiving young members into taking out large loans, committing benefit fraud and even selling their own blood. In one case, a young graduate has been left with a huge debt after investing the school fees sent by the parents in church schemes.
“It is alleged that the church leadership lead lavish lifestyles and there have, it is said, been instances of abuse. The [Home Office’s] case before us was that all of this needs to be taken into account when evaluating whether [Mr Adegboyega] is in fact of real value to the UK.”
Read also: Tobi Adegboyega faces deportation amid £1.87m fraud allegations
Mr Adegboyega gave a Patike luxury watch worth £85,000 to a journalist and is seen in a video spraying the muscian Davido with bundles of £20 notes at a party in London. He has lived in the UK unlawfully since overstaying on a visitor’s visa that allowed him to enter Britain in 2005. In 2019, he applied for leave to remain under ECHR’s right to a family life. His application was initially dismissed by a first-tier immigration tribunal before he appealed.
In the tribunal, he maintained no one had ever faced criminal charges over his church’s finances, that many of the attacks on him and SPAC Nation were politically motivated and that claims it was a cult were unfounded.
However, the Uk tribunal was told the Charity Commission concluded “there had been serious misconduct and/or mismanagement in the administration of the charity which was sustained over a substantial period of time”.
The tribunal also found Mr Adegboyega’s evidence to be “hyperbolic in many instances” and had “sought to grossly inflate his influence”. “We find it to be implausible that he has the time to undertake all of this work personally,” it said.
The tribunal concluded: “We are not satisfied that the good work that SPAC Nation undertakes generally would collapse or even significantly suffer should the Appellant be required to leave the UK.
“Weighing all of the foregoing in the balance we conclude that the decision to refuse leave to remain was wholly proportionate.
“Mr Adegboyega seeks to rely on family and private life relationships, all of which have been established whilst he was in the UK unlawfully, and which would survive his return to Nigeria.
“The interference would therefore be limited, and lawful in all the circumstances.”
Adegoyega claims all Nigerians should be proud of him but many who spoke to our reporters in Lagos dismissed this and said there sare better ambassadors of Africa’s most populous nation.
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