The continued stay of a six-year-old Nigerian boy,
Monisola Muiz Bakre, in the United Kingdom (UK) has become a source of dispute
between his parents and the British government.
The boy’s father, Mr Ayokuleyin Bakre, is accusing the UK
government of “illegal and forceful adoption” of his son.
The UK authorities are taking over the child’s care in
pursuance of a London court’s ruling, which empowered the London Borough of
Bexley to take custody of the boy.
Nigerian-born Monisola was taken into the British
government’s custody in 2013, following multiple injuries he sustained in a
domestic accident at his aunt’s residence in London when he was a year old. The
London Metropolitan Police accused his mother of causing him “non-accidental
injury” after a medical examination was carried out at the Queen Elizabeth
Hospital in London.
The UK authorities took custody of the boy in July 2012
after a Bromley County Court ruled that
he was “at the risk of significant harm” for his mother’s failure to notice
injuries in his head after the accident.
The inability of his parents to have unrestricted access
to him in the past five years is destabilising the Bakre family, with the
troubled father telling his wife, Folashade, not to return to Nigeria without
their son.
In its September 15, 2015 judgment on Case Number BR15Z00878
filed by the London Borough of Bexley, the London Family Court at Bromley
ordered that the applicant “is authorised to place the child for adoption with
any prospective adopters who may be chosen by the authority”.
Bakre rejected the judgment, saying the UK government
does not have legal and moral rights to take full custody of his son. Monisola,
the father said, was born in Nigeria and does not have dual citizenship.
In his petition titled: Illegal attempt to consider
Monisola Muiz Bakre for adoption by the Government of United Kingdom, addressed
to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Abuja, Bakre said the British government
had denied him the rights to administer paternal care on his child. He said the
UK authorities barred him from seeing his child by denying him visa, noting
that the last time he physically saw his son was when he was one-year-old.
Just after his first birthday, Monisola was taken to
London by his mother on May 27, 2012 on a visit to his paternal aunt, Mrs Angel
Bakre.
Source:Nation
Tags
Society