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MISTAKEN IDENTITY! Nigerian man sues Canada government for $10 million
A Nigerian-Canadian man, Olajide Ogunye, has sued the country’s government after he was arrested by border agents and detained for 8 months despite producing evidence of his citizenship.
The 47-year-old man is seeking $10 million in compensation from the Canadian government after he spent months incarcerated in what his lawyer has described as a “profoundly disturbing” case of mistaken identity.
Ogunye was approached by border agents and detained outside his Toronto home in June 2016, even though he produced citizenship papers and a government-issued health card.
The agents disputed the validity of the documents and brought him to a detention facility near Toronto Pearson airport, where they fingerprinted him and alleged his prints matched those of a fraudulent refugee claimant who was deported to Nigeria in the 1990s.
Adam Hummel, Ogunye’s lawyer said,
“It is shocking. Even people who are having their citizenship revoked … are not detained like this.”
The results of the fingerprint analysis which Hummel says were never shown to his client were contradicted by numerous sworn affidavits by friends and neighbours who had known Ogunye for years.
Ogunye, who immigrated to Canada from Nigeria with his family and became a citizen in 1996, was prevented from making contact with family members.
Traumatized by his detention, he was placed on suicide watch.
“One time, for the whole month, I was crying nonstop. I was crying continuously,” he told the CBC. Ogunye was released in February 2017.
Hummel and his client charge that the government breached Ogunye’s constitutional rights; he filed the case in Ontario superior court on 30 May. Guardian reports.
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