United Kingdom-trained immigration lawyer, Paul Onuachalla, has urged the Federal Government to constructively engage the British Government over its adoption law which adversely affects Nigerian couples.
The law, enacted in 2014, provides very stringent conditions for couples seeking to adopt children in Nigeria and take them back to UK.
Onuachalla, Anambra-born Freelance Legal Adviser with JDS Solicitors London, made the call in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Abuja.
According to him, the law called, `Inter-Country Adoption Law,’ was enacted in-line with the Hague Convention of 1993.
“The UK government, however, updated the list of countries affected by the law in 2014 with Nigeria and some West African countries as those that couples seeking adoption of children must follow the stringent conditions spelt out by the law.
“The law implies that couples who want to adopt from their country of origin must apply to inter-country adoption agency and the agency will monitor the whole process, including legal proceedings in their home countries and ensure the process is as that of the UK,’’ he said.
Onuachalla, who described the process as `obnoxious and capital intensive’, added that the intended couples will be made to undertake the costs of the entire process.
He said the cumbersome process had made it impossible for Nigerian couples who adopted children to bring them into the UK.
“The law is completely wrong and demeaning to Nigeria as a country because the legal system of both UK and Nigeria are almost the same.
“I have practiced in the UK as a senior Immigration lawyer and observed that their legal system and that of Nigeria is almost the same thing.
“The little difference is in the area of court rules. They rely on both decided cases and case laws and we equally do the same. And both are Commonwealth and Common law nations.
“I then do not understand why a judge in Nigeria will make an order on adoption and his counterpart in the Uk will not honour it, the whole thing does not make sense to me,’’ Onuachalla said.
He noted with concerns that due to the adoption law of the UK some couples of Nigeria descent residing in UK had been forced to either relocate or meant to be visiting home yearly or quarterly to see their adopted child.
“I feel what the UK government at best should do is to scrutinize the documents for adoption from any country including Nigeria because barring couples from adopting from their countries of origin amounts to encroaching into peoples’ privacy,’’ he said.
Onuachalla said, it was unfortunate that British Government most times does not factor in the presumed bilateral relationship with Nigeria, her once colonized nation in some of her foreign policies which affect our nation.
“This adoption law is one very serious issue the federal government should urgently tackle because its obvious consequences to Nigerians living in the United Kingdom, but not much is being done since the listing of our country among nations affected by this law.
“I feel President Bola Tinubu should look into this very discriminatory law against Nigerians from a nation it heavily relate with as partner in many fronts,” he said.(NAN)
