Docket: IMM-19319-24
Citation: 2025 FC 1878
Ottawa, Ontario, November 26, 2025
PRESENT: The Honourable Mr. Justice Régimbald
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BETWEEN: |
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ABRAHAM IZUCHUKWU JIDEOFOR |
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Applicant |
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and |
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THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION |
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Respondent |
JUDGMENT AND REASONS
I. Overview
[1] Abraham Izuchukwu Jideofor [Applicant], seeks judicial review of a September 26, 2024, decision [Decision] of the Refugee Appeal Division [RAD] confirming the decision of Refugee Protection Division [RPD] denying his claim for refugee protection under section 97 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, SC 2001, c 27 [IRPA]. The Applicant sought refugee protection in Canada, alleging a fear of returning to Nigeria because he might be persecuted by members of his paternal family as a result of his status as the inheritor of his late father’s properties based on customary Igbo law.
[2] The Applicant claims that the Decision is unreasonable because the RAD did not assess his claim through the lens of section 96 of the IRPA.
[3] For the reasons that follow, the application for judicial review is dismissed. Upon reviewing the record before the Court, including both parties’ written and oral submissions, as well as the applicable law, I find that the Applicant did not meet his onus to demonstrate that the RAD’s decision is unreasonable.
II. Background Facts
[4] The Applicant is a citizen of Nigeria and a member of the Igbo tribe. According to Igbo customary law, the eldest living son inherits the properties of the deceased parent. In this case, the Applicant grew up without knowing his father until his passing in 2010 and only learned of his death in 2014.
[5] The Applicant left Nigeria and entered Canada in November 2015. That same year, the Applicant’s mother received two threatening texts messages from an anonymous number stating: “You have succeeded in taking everything, you and your children will rot in hell”
and “Witch, you don [
sic] kill our brother so that you and your children will take everything, you shall all die.”
A police report was filed in 2020, to denounce these threats.
[6] In September 2019, the Applicant married a Canadian citizen, from whom he separated in February 2020, admitting that the marriage was not genuine and rather for the purpose of obtaining status in Canada.
[7] In September 2021, the Applicant’s older brother was shot and killed by unknown aggressors, making him at that time the eldest son still living and therefore being in the position to inherit his late father’s estate, despite him having died about 10 years before. In July 2022, his younger brother was kidnapped, and his mother paid a ransom to have him released by his aggressors.
[8] The Applicant believes that members of his paternal family are responsible for the threats made to his mother as well as the murder and kidnapping of his brothers, because they want to be in possession of his father’s properties. He admits, however, to not knowing who was responsible for these incidents, nor of the aggressors’ motivation. In light of these events and fearing that he will be killed by them if he returned to Nigeria, the Applicant filed a refugee claim in November 2023.
[9] In a decision dated September 26, 2024, the RAD upheld the RPD’s decision, finding that the Applicant was not a person in need of protection. The RAD found that there is no forward-facing risk if the Applicant returns to Nigeria. The RAD also found that the RPD correctly evaluated the claim under section 97 rather than section 96 of the IRPA and concluded that the claim centred around the Applicant’s perceived right to inherit his father’s properties and not on his Igbo ethnic identity. The RAD determined that the evidence did not establish more than a mere possibility of forward-looking persecution nor a risk of harm on a balance of probabilities if the Applicant returned to Nigeria. Therefore, his claim failed regardless of the ground relied upon under sections 96 and 97 of the IRPA.
III. Issues and Standard of Review
[10] The sole issue is whether the RAD’s decision is reasonable.
[11] The applicable standard of review is reasonableness (Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 at paras 10, 25 [Vavilov]; Mason v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 SCC 21 at paras 7, 39–44 [Mason]). To avoid judicial intervention, the decision must bear the hallmarks of reasonableness – justification, transparency and intelligibility (Vavilov at para 99; Mason at para 59). The decision must be read holistically and contextually, in light of the evidence, the submissions and the context in which it was rendered (Pepa v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2025 SCC 21 at para 47 [Pepa]; Vavilov at paras 94, 97). A decision may be unreasonable if the decision maker misapprehended the evidence before it (Vavilov at paras 125-126; Mason at para 73). However, the reviewing Court must refrain from “reweighing and reassessing the evidence considered by the decision maker”
(Vavilov at para 125). In determining reasonableness, the reviewing Court must not create its “own yardstick”
and use it to measure what the decision maker did (Pepa at para 48; Vavilov at para 83, and Canada Post Corp. v Canadian Union of Postal Workers, 2019 SCC 67 at para 40). Reasonableness review is not a “rubber-stamping”
exercise, it is a robust form of review (Vavilov at para 13; Mason at para 63). The party challenging the decision bears the onus of demonstrating that the decision is unreasonable (Vavilov at para 100). Any alleged flaws must be “sufficiently central or significant to render the decision unreasonable”
or cause the “reviewing court to lose confidence in the outcome reached”
(Vavilov at paras 100, 106; Pepa at para 49).
IV. Analysis
[12] The Applicant argues that the Decision is unreasonable because the RAD should have analyzed his fear of persecution on the basis of his membership in a particular social group, being the Igbo tribe, pursuant to section 96 of the IRPA. The Applicant submits that in the Igbo tribe, adherence to customary laws and practices regarding inheritance is a fundamental aspect of their identity and cultural practices. The situation therefore represents much more than a property rights dispute that cannot constitute a fundamental right sufficient to ground a refugee claim, as already dismissed by this Court in Kenguruka v Canada (Minister of Citizenship & Immigration), 2014 FC 895 at paragraph 2 [Kenguruka]; Ramirez v Canada (Solicitor General), 88 FTR 208 at paragraph 12, [1994] FCJ No 1888 (QL); and Chen v Canada (Minister of Citizenship & Immigration), [1995] FCJ No 189 (QL) (see also Malik v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2019 FC 955 at para 16 [Malik]; Enam v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 FC 1683 at para 18 [Enam]). Instead, the Applicant submits that his right to inheritance in this case is an immutable characteristic linked to his tribal customs and is integral to his cultural identity, and therefore is a fundamental right protected under section 96 of the IRPA.
[13] The Applicant submits that the Respondent’s reliance on Kenguruka at paragraph 2 and Sanchez v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2007 FCA 99 at paragraph 16 [Sanchez] (see also Malik at para 16; Enam at para 18) is misplaced. These cases support the principle that when a refugee claimant can make a reasonable choice and free themselves of a risk of harm, they must be expected to pursue those options to ensure their personal safety. That principle suggests that in relation to property rights disputes, an applicant would not be in any risk if they simply surrendered their rights to the property. In the Applicant’s case, this would mean to relinquish his right to inherit his late father’s properties.
[14] However, the Applicant submits that requiring him to relinquish his right to inheritance also requires him to relinquish and be deprived of a fundamental aspect of his identity, cultural practices, and the customary rules intrinsically linked to his membership in the Igbo tribe. Together those constitute a core cultural norm, immutable characteristic, and fundamental right of the Igbo tribe as a particular social group, which satisfy the nexus requirement and is as such protected under section 96 of the IRPA. Forcing the Applicant to renounce his inheritance would be tantamount to forcing him to abandon his tribal identity and cultural norms. In this case, by framing the issue solely as a property rights dispute, the RPD and RAD failed to account for the cultural and social context of the Applicant’s claim.
[15] The Applicant also submits that if the RAD had considered the evidence adduced through the prism of section 96 – his fear of persecution as the member of a social group (Igbo tribe) and the Igbo customary laws on inheritance constituting an immutable part of his identity and culture – the RAD’s conclusions of fact on his forward-facing risk would have been different. On that basis, his request for the Court’s intervention relies on an error of law made by the RAD and does not constitute a request to re-weigh its the factual conclusions, something that the Court cannot do on judicial review unless there are exceptional circumstances (Vavilov at para 125).
[16] I do not foreclose that, theoretically and with conclusive evidence, the requirement to relinquish a property right (or any other cultural or identity characteristic feature – race, religion, nationality and political opinion are already specifically covered under section 96 of the IRPA) might constitute an unacceptable breach of a fundamental right in the context of an immutable characteristic of a particular social group’s cultural identity and customary laws, and that a fear of persecution on that ground might qualify to obtain refugee status under section 96 of the IRPA. For that argument to be sustained, however, convincing evidence of the link to the property (or other characteristic feature) with the particular social group’s identity, culture and customary norms would be required (for example, Indigenous relationship with ancestral lands). If that was the case, it could be possible to rule, with cogent evidence in support, that forcing an individual to renounce their claim would be tantamount to forcing them to abandon their identity and cultural norms with the social group (in this case the Igbo tribe), which would violate the basic principle underlying refugee law to protect individuals from persecution based on immutable characteristics or fundamental aspects of their identity and culture.
[17] However, the facts in this case are insufficient to establish the existence of a forward-facing risk upon the Applicant’s return to Nigeria, even if the Applicant refuses to surrender his inheritance right and continues to enjoy the fundamental aspects of his identity, cultural practices, and the customary rules intrinsically linked to his membership in the Igbo tribe.
[18] On the issue of violence in relation to possession of land in Nigeria, in Nsofor v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 FC 274, Justice Elliott held that the Igbo individual in that case would not face a risk of harm if he returned to Nigeria because, as held in Kenguruka and Sanchez, his risk could be avoided “if the Applicant were to “not pursue or if necessary, completely relinquish his interest in the land””
(at para 35) and that therefore, the applicant should make reasonable choices to avoid the risk of harm. In that case, the applicant was in a dispute over the land with his brother, but there was no issue as to whether his interest in land engaged any immutable fundamental right to inheritance under the Igbo culture or customary laws as is argued in this case. Igbo land disputes, therefore, do not necessarily relate to any Igbo cultural or customary norm.
[19] As stated, the evidence in this case does not support a forward-facing risk to the Applicant should he return to Nigeria. The RAD reasonably found, and as the Applicant himself testified : (i) no one in his family inherited anything; (ii) he did not try to claim any of the properties as an inheritance; (iii) most of the properties have already been sold in any event; (iv) the threats received by his mother were from an unknown number and not directed to him; and (v) he did not know the identity of the individuals responsible for the threats to his mother nor of his older brother’s death and his younger brother’s kidnapping.
[20] In my view, the RAD’s (and the RPD’s) findings of fact are consistent with the evidence adduced by the Applicant in this case. The RAD properly assessed the evidence before it and reasonably concluded that there is no forward-facing risk if the Applicant returns to Nigeria. The RAD properly explained why, in its view, the facts as explained by the Applicant did not meet the necessary threshold to establish a forward-facing risk of persecution or of harm on a balance of probabilities. That conclusion is based on several reasonable findings of facts as noted above. Quite simply, the Applicant has not been able to identify an agent of harm that is threatening him upon his return to Nigeria and his belief that members of his paternal family intend to persecute him has not been established on the evidence adduced by the Applicant. Consequently, there is not a serious possibility that the Applicant would be persecuted on the basis of his right to inheritance of properties from his late father’s estate.
[21] In the end, the Court is satisfied that the RAD properly reviewed the evidence before it and that its conclusion falls within a range of possible and acceptable outcomes. The Applicant has not pointed to any specific factual element that was ignored or any irrelevant ground that was improperly considered and as such, failed to discharge his burden to demonstrate that there were sufficient shortcomings warranting the Court’s intervention (Vavilov at paras 86, 100, 102).
[22] Consequently, the RAD did not err in failing to consider the Applicant’s claim under section 96 of the IRPA, because the RAD reasonably concluded that the evidence in this case was insufficient to meet the threshold required to qualify for protection under both sections 96 and 97 of the IRPA (RAD decision at para 11).
V. Conclusion
[23] The application for judicial review is dismissed.
[24] The parties have not proposed a question of public importance to certify, and I agree that none arises in this case.
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