A United Kingdom-based Nigerian flamboyant Pastor, Tobi Adegboyega, will be deported to Nigeria after he lost his legal battle to remain in the UK following the closure of his church linked to a £1.87 million fraud.
An immigration tribunal has ruled that 44-year-old Adegboyega, head of the controversial SPAC Nation church, should be deported after his church was closed down for various infractions.
Adegboyega: His flamboyant lifestyle had long attracted attention
Adegboyega, a flamboyant designer-outfits-wearing preacher is famous for hanging out with celebrities and showing off his multimillion pounds car collections, including Ferraris and Lamborghini.
The preacher is often in the company of celebrities, artists, and film stars, including his cousin, film producer, John Boyega.
His church was shut down after failing to properly account for more than £1.87m of outgoings and operating without transparency, including asking his members, including the poorest, for donations and tithes.
Appearing before the tribunal, the psychedelic preacher said 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.
Describing 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”.
Still, 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.
‘Selling their blood’
“Former members of the church have alleged that it is a cult, in which impoverished young people are encouraged to do anything they can to donate money, including taking out large loans, committing benefit fraud and even selling their blood.
“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.”
Mr Adegboyega 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.
