THE Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Richard Chartres, has written to the Home Secretary urging her to prevent Damilola Ajagbonna, a 19-year-old immigrant, from being deported to Nigeria (News, 8 February).
Mr Ajagbonna arrived in the UK in 1999 with his ailing mother, and was unofficially adopted by his British aunt after her request for adoption was not registered by their lawyer in time.
He excelled at Greig City Academy, a C of E school in north London, where he became head boy. Last week Mr Ajagbonna was awarded the Mellitus medal for his contribution to society. The United Nations appointed him an adviser on youth issues to UNICEF in 2005.
The Bishop said this week: “He is exactly the kind of person we need in this role, and is capable of being a much-needed mentor and role model to young people, particularly boys, who may have troubled home or school lives. It seems ridiculous that we are seriously proposing to deport him.
“It seems Damilola has been used as a statistic to satisfy a target, and has been overlooked as an individual. I have written to the Home Secretary expressing my concerns over this matter, and asking her to exercise her discretion to allow him to stay.”
“I feel like the system that I had embraced and contributed to has finally disowned me,” Mr Ajagbonna said.
The MP for Tottenham, David Lammy, has also asked the Home Secretary to intervene on behalf of Mr Ajagbonna.
Last week, Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops called on the Government to help asylum-seekers. In a joint statement they said: “We wish to express our concern at what appear to us to be aspects of inhumanity in the official process undergone by asylum-seekers.”
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