Nigerian student to fight deportation bid

The Nigerian student Olunkunle Eluhanla is preparing a legal challenge to halt his deportation, it emerged tonight.

He was originally deported to Nigeria on a chartered flight last March but Minister for Justice Michael McDowell was forced to allow him to return to sit his Leaving Certificate exams, after a huge protest campaign by his classmates.

Mr Eluhanla’s six-month student visa expired last year and he was served with a deportation order last month.

The Residents Against Racism group said that he would be seeking a judicial review of the deportation order.

“We’re very hopeful that it will succeed,” said spokeswoman Rosanna Flynn.

She added that group was not going to mount any protests about the deportation order due to advice from Mr Eluhanla’s legal team.

The student, who is in his early 20s, received a letter from Minister McDowell last month which stated that allowing him to stay would be contrary to the common good.

It outlined several reasons for the decision, including the fact that his application for asylum had been turned down, and the fact that he had recently pleaded guilty in court to charges of driving without insurance or tax since he returned to Ireland.

He also has one previous conviction for a road traffic offence.

He arrived in Ireland as an unaccompanied minor and has said that he has no family or relatives in Nigeria.

The campaign to allow him to return to Ireland attracted support from his classmates in Palmerstown Community College in Dublin and the Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin.

He was carried shoulder high by classmates when he returned to Dublin Airport in April last year and professed his desire to stay in Ireland forever.