Prince says UK stay worse than torture

Flag of Nigeria. Image / Wikimedia Commons

A Nigerian Prince who fled to Britain after being tortured in a tribal dispute over his family's claim to a royal throne has now begged the Home Office to send him home.

Prince Ademola Babatunde Bakare says his treatment as an asylum-seeker in the UK is worse than his experience in Nigeria, where he suffered gunshot wounds to his kneecaps and violent beatings.

The 37-year-old Prince came to Britain in 2008 after mistakenly boarding a ship he thought was bound for Canada, where he had arranged to join his wife and children.

But when he reported himself to British authorities he was arrested and sentenced to prison for travelling with false documents.

During his year-long detention, he claims, he did not receive proper medical treatment for his gunshot wounds.

He says the conditions of his detention are another form of torture which has forced him to ask the Government to send him back to Nigeria even though he says he faces further persecution when he arrives.

In letters to the UK authorities, he argues he would be better looked after in Nigeria and says: "I didn't want to come to this useless country in the first place."

In another letter to his advisers he says: "The Home Office is using my illness to torture me. I am a torture survivor and am still suffering seriously from my past torture, [for] which I needed proper standard medical care."

Prince Bakare is a member of the Ajike royal family, one of three competing royal families in the city of Owo.

In February 1999, when Olateru Olagbegi III was installed as the new king of Owo, Prince Bakare's family challenged Olagbegi's legitimacy.

This led to violent disputes between the two families, and Prince Bakare and his family were caught in the middle.

He claims that in 2004 his wife was raped and stabbed in the back, his 3-year-old son burned with boiling water and his house set on fire.

In January 2008, Prince Bakare and his uncle, Chief Ademiyi Bayo Ajike, fled to Benin to escape further violence. But the uncle was tortured, shot and bled to death, while Prince Bakare's legs were wounded and his ribs broken.

A doctor who examined the Prince in Britain in September last year found "strong clinical evidence in the form of many scars and other lesions, including gunshot wounds to both legs, which show that there is a reasonable likelihood that he has been the victim of organised violence".

He said his patient showed "strong evidence of post-traumatic stress disorder".

Yesterday it emerged that Prince Bakare may get his wish, when it was reported that he had been served with travel documents for a return flight to Nigeria.

- INDEPENDENT