Edwin Okey Chikata Ijeoma stands accomplished as an academic: a PhD, he has served at Africa Union’s New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD); authored books; and made South Africa proud as a professor and applied research specialist in Policy and Public Sector Economics at the country’s University of Fort Hare (UFH).
But South Africa says it no longer wants him because he has been dishonest.
In 1998, Edwin had arrived South Africa from Nigeria on a student visa to study at the University of Pretoria, earning a PhD in Economics in 2003. Having come to like Mandela’s country, he opted to stay back, taking the pathway of naturalization.
Except that to naturalize in South Africa, he would have to renounce his Nigerian citizenship. With great prospects abroad, many Nigerians would not hesitate to do that. Edwin didn’t and became a South African in 2005. All was good. His naturalization had relied on his marriage to a South African woman and he grew in his career, leading projects in the institution. Until recently, he was head of UFH’s school of public administration.
Two years after, he divorced his South African wife reportedly over the couple’s inability to have a child.
He was then joined in SA by a Nigerian woman, Anne Ijeoma. South Africa’s Home Affairs officials were tipped off that he had committed bigamy by marrying the SA woman while being married in Nigeria. In her application for permanent residence in SA, Edwin’s wife Ijeoma had attached a copy of her 1993 marriage to him in Nigeria.
Consequently, South Africa revoked his citizenship and rendered him an undesirable inhabitant of the country. Having previously renounced his Nigerian citizenship, Edwin has nowhere else to go. He has also been under suspension by his university where he was accused of illegally registering a student for an honours degree in public administration when she was not entitled to register for postgraduate studies.
He took Home Affairs to court in 2020, but the court held that the agency had not erred in voiding his citizenship over false representation. A recent appeal also affirmed the earlier ruling, saying he was disingenuous, if not dishonest, and that there was no reason to reverse the decision.
Officials said his sole mission in marrying the SA woman was to acquire citizenship.
In her original judgment, an SA judge found that Edwin had presented contradictory reasons for his bigamous actions — he had said that as an African man, he believed he was entitled to marry more than one wife; and that he represented himself as single because he was not aware SA recognised customary marriages.
The judge said Edwin failed to disclose the existence of his marriage in Nigeria on three occasions: when he applied for permanent residence in SA, when he got married in the country, and when he applied for citizenship.
For a defendant “who by his own admission is of good and sound mind and an intellectual giant,” it was highly improbable that, throughout his stay in the country and his encounters with immigration matters, he remained ignorant of the implications of not disclosing his Nigerian marriage, the judge said.
Edwin told the court he obtained a permanent residence permit because of his “good and sound character” rather than his marriage to the SA woman.
He said Home Affairs had failed to take into account his contribution to SA as a result of his work as an academic and within NEPAD.
The judge said Edwin’s naturalization application had been helped by an exemption certificate which cited his marriage to an SA woman as support in addition to his academic records. Edwin had also admitted during a 2015 plea for Home Affairs to have compassion on him, that he obtained citizenship by naturalisation as a result of the marriage.
Home Affairs provided the court with the certificate for Ijeoma’s marriage in Nigeria to dispel the notion it was a customary marriage. In any case, the Nigeria Marriage Act prohibited marriage where one of the parties was already married to another person under customary law.
In two immigration submissions in SA, when he had to indicate an immediate family member still residing in Nigeria, Edwin had listed Anne Ijeoma as his sister.
Officials also said Edwin would have remained a permanent resident for five years had he not been exempted because of his marriage to the SA citizen.
UFH spokesperson Thandi Mapukata said she would need time to check with the university’s human resources department what steps might be taken after the court’s finding against Edwin.
“The university wasn’t aware of this development until now. We will contact law enforcement agencies to obtain a full briefing.”
Source: https://nigeriabroad.com
