The UK Home Secretary Theresa May wasted £95,000- £110,000 in a failed attempt to deport a dying Nigerian asylum seeker named Ifa Muaza. Muaza sought asylum from Nigeria, and believes his family were murdered after his departure; the UK denied his application. He embarked on a 100-day hunger strike, prepared to die in a high-security detention centre rather than go back to Nigeria. Muaza was an embarrassment to Theresa May, whose Conservative party has declared war on migrants and asylum seekers in a bid to appeal to xenophobic voters who defected to the racist UK Independence Party.
May secretly chartered a private jet to deport the frail and failing Muaza, whom government doctors had declared to be too ill to travel and in danger of "imminent death." The plane was refused entry to Nigerian airspace; it later landed in Malta (which objected to use of its airstrip). Finally, the plane returned to the UK, landing at Luton airport with Muaza still aboard, and the British taxpayer out £95,000- £110,000, in addition to the £180,000 already spent on legal bills, thanks to May's vanity and determination to appear "tough on immigration."
A letter from Roberts to the home secretary appealing for clemency for Muaza was co-signed by a group of cross-party MPs and peers. After it was revealed on Wednesday that a ticket had been booked on a flight to Abuja, the Nigerian capital, Lib Dem MP Sarah Teather called on Virgin Atlantic to refuse to accept Muaza on the plane due to the concerns about his health.
On Saturday night Teather said she was "truly, truly, appalled" at the treatment of Muaza. "To put a well man through this kind of stress and journey would be bad enough, but to do it to a man in such a desperate condition? Well done, Theresa May, you proved your toughness at the expense of your humanity. This should give everyone pause for thought. I cannot see why this was in anyone's interest.
"That the government is rushing to deport a man prepared to starve himself to death rather than be returned says everything about the culture of disbelief towards individuals fleeing persecution that is a defining characteristic of the UK's asylum process," she told Politics.co.uk.
"I find it hard to believe that a man who has refused to eat for over 90 days is playing the system and being wilfully manipulative. These are the actions of a desperate man who clearly fears for his safety should he be returned to Nigeria."
Theresa May under fire for bid to fly out hunger striker Ifa Muaza [Tracy McVeigh/The Observer]
(Image: Theresa May, UK Home Office/Wikimedia)
