The United Kingdom has decided to repatriate a Nigerian pastor, Tobi Adegboyega, for allegedly misusing the sum of £1.87 million that his church garnered.
Immediately after the alleged fraud was discovered, the UK government closed down Adegboyega’s SPAC Nation church and started his prosecution.
Failing to convince the UK tribunal that the church finances were not fraudulently gotten and spent, Investors King reliably gathered that the 44-year-old cleric would soon be sent packing to his native country.
During his investigation, it was discovered that the embattled Adegboyega, who is a cousin to the Star Wars actor, John Boyega, has been living in the UK illegally.
This was disclosed by an immigration tribunal that ordered the cleric’s deportation back to Nigeria.
He has been probed and found that he misused funds from his church after failing to properly account for more than £1.87 million of outgoings and operating with a lack of transparency.
The clergyman had claimed that the deportation would breach his right under the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) to a family life – having married a British woman.
He said that it would be wrong for the Home Office to eject him from the UK despite his community service in the UK through his church.
Adegboyega’s lawyers had defined him as a charismatic community leader of the large, well-organised church, maintaining that he had impacted the lives of many hundreds of young people, predominantly from the black communities in London, positively and engaged them meaningfully.
The legal team also claimed that the pastor’s work had been praised by politicians including Boris Johnson and senior figures within the Metropolitan Police, even though there is no evidence or testimony to this claim by Adegboyega during his trial in court.
Adegboyega also noted that without his personal presence in London, projects that he had masterminded would fall apart or reduce in size.
But, the tribunal disagreed with him, insisting that his church would remain shut down because of concerns over its finances and lack of transparency.
The court also stated that Adegboyega’s former church members accused him of running a cult-like worship centre, which he has used to impoverish young people and manipulated them into donating money to the church, including taking out large loans, committing benefit fraud and even selling their own blood.
It also posited that the church leadership led lavish lifestyles while the leaders abused some members of the congregation.
The Home Office, while digging to know whether deporting Adegboyega would signal a loss of value for the UK, later disclosed that the cleric has been living in the UK unlawfully since overstaying on a visitor’s visa that allowed him to enter Britain in 2005.
It added that in 2019, he applied for leave to remain under ECHR’s right to a family life and that his application was initially dismissed by a first-tier immigration tribunal before he appealed.
However, Adegboyega, while addressing the tribunal, maintained that 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 tribunal was told the Charity Commission concluded that 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 Adegboyega’s evidence to be “hyperbolic in many instances” and had “sought to grossly inflate his influence”.
The tribunal concluded that the acclaimed good work of Adegboyega was not satisfactory, noting that the Appellant exiting the UK would not make the SPAC Nation and its services to collapse.
