Date: 20070924
Docket: IMM-4502-06
Citation: 2007 FC 952
Ottawa, Ontario, September 24, 2007
PRESENT: The Honourable Mr. Justice Barnes
BETWEEN:
JOSIAH
OSALADE
Applicant(s)
and
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP
AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent(s)
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT AND JUDGMENT
[1]
These
are my reasons for judgment given orally at Toronto on September
13, 2007.
[2]
This
is an application for judicial review brought by Josiah Osalade from a decision
of the Refugee Protection Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board (Board)
dated July 25, 2006.
[3]
Mr.
Osalade is a citizen of Nigeria. He claimed protection
in Canada on the basis
of a fear of political persecution arising out of a false perception by the
Nigerian authorities that he was a member of the Ooduwa People's Congress
(OPC).
[4]
Mr.
Osalade claimed in his testimony and in his Personal Information Form (PIF)
that he was a businessman and operated a shop near the Century Hotel in Lagos, Nigeria. He said
that on November 3, 2005 he heard a noise and came out of his shop. As he was
standing outside, three policemen arrested him for being a member of the OPC.
He stated that he was taken to a police station where he was tortured and
beaten. However, no charges were ever brought against him. He stated that
after a few days he met a sympathetic policeman who his uncle was able to
bribe. This resulted in his release from detention on December 4, 2005. He
then fled to Canada. He claims
that all of his documents were taken from him at the border.
[5]
The
record contains media and documentary evidence that a police raid did occur at
the Century Hotel on November 2, 2005 and that a number of alleged OPC members
were arrested at that hotel. In his testimony, Mr. Osalade stated that he was
arrested on the same day as this raid and that the police apparently believed
that he had fled the hotel.
[6]
Mr.
Osalade was given the opportunity during his testimony to the Board to correct
the date in his story but he insisted that he was arrested on November 3,
2005. He contended that the date reported in the newspapers was in error.
[7]
Mr.
Osalade argues on this application that the Board made patently unreasonable
findings of fact in rejecting his testimony. He submits that the Board should
have considered the possibility that there had been two police raids but that
only one of them was reported in the press.
[8]
I
do not accept that the Board made any patently unreasonable factual errors in
its decision.
[9]
It
is quite clear from the context of Mr. Osalade's evidence that he was claiming
to have been caught up in the midst of a police raid at the Century Hotel
directed at members of the OPC who were suspects in the murder of a police
officer. Because he was in the vicinity of the hotel at the time of this raid,
he alleged that he was arrested on suspicion of being an OPC member. In the
Port of Entry Record of Examination, Mr. Osalade described the event as
follows:
Detained by the police on suspicion of
being an OPC member. My business was close to the Century Hotel and while the
hotel was being raided by the police on 03 November 2005, I was picked up and
detained for a period of one month.
[10]
This
event was further described in the following passage from Mr. Osalade's PIF:
I was just opening my shop where I sell
building materials on Thursday the 3” day of November, 2005 when I heard
several gunshots and various people running helter shelter and on coming out of
my store to look at what was going on I was accosted by the men of the Nigerian
police force who stopped me and asked me where I was coming from and what I do
for a living & also where I was living. I politely answered them that I
was a trader selling building materials and I pointed to my store located, in
the area and that I was opening for the day business But to my surprise I was
replied with hot slaps and my hands were immediately handcuffed by the
policemen whom claimed that there were in my area to arrest OPC members whom
had been responsible for the numerous acts of violence and atrotricities such
as the recent killing of a policeman and participating in the recent lyana-Ipaja
mayhem. My pleas to them that I was a law abiding individual who went about
his daily duties respectfully and diligently fell on deaf ears and I was beaten
and maltreated and taken away for detention. Due to the increasing crime rate
in the country, various areas and community resorted to contributing money and
bought arms for vigilante groups to protect them from armed robbery and other
forms of crime prevailing in the Nigerian society as the Nigerian police as
failed in this major aspect to protect the country. I and the other traders
selling in the area where arrested by the police and driven away to the
station, where we were eventually detained and locked up in various cell under
inhumane conditions. All my pleas and explanations that I was not present in
the Century Hotel & that I was not a member of the OPC group nor was I a
member of the vigilante groups formed to provide security to protect the area
to the policemen fell on deaf ears, as I was severely beaten and tortured by
the police.
[Quoted from original text]
[11]
Before
the Board, Mr. Osalade was questioned in detail about the circumstances of his
alleged detention and once again, he asserted that it was connected to the
police raid at the Century Hotel on November 3, 2005. However, when he was
confronted by two newspaper articles stating that the hotel raid and associated
arrests were carried out on November 2, 2005, his response was that the
newspaper accounts were in error. This evidence was as follows:
Claimant: I didn’t, I didn’t - -
I’m so sure of when I was arrested because it is one of the important things in
my life. So the Century Hotel was raided on the 3rd of November
that is when I was arrested. It couldn’t because it was exactly when I was
picked up so if The Vanguard makes a mistake, I do not want to defend
them but I’m specifically sure that I was picked up on the 3rd of
November.
…
Claimant: That is not my
explanation; that is not how I understand it. The raid occurred and people
fled from that hotel - - people fled from that hotel and the police suspected
that people would flee from the hotel but had hidden in various houses. Since
my shop was close to that Century Hotel, I guess that was why I was a victim of
the circumstances.
The argument now made is that Mr. Osalade's
arrest may have taken place in a second raid on the day following the Century
Hotel police raid and that the Board erred by failing to consider that as a
reasonable explanation for the dating inconsistency. This argument has no
evidentiary foundation and, indeed, it is entirely inconsistent with Mr.
Osalade's evidence. Before
the Board, he did not attempt to explain the dating discrepancy by asserting
that his arrest was on the day following the hotel raid. He asserted that he
was an innocent victim caught up in a specific event which took place on
November 3, 2005. The newspaper accounts indicate that this was a notorious
incident and Mr. Osalade claimed to have been in the middle of it. If the
police had conducted raids at the Century Hotel on two successive days it is
reasonable to expect that Mr. Osalade would have known about it. However, he
spoke of one event that occurred on one day. It was also entirely reasonable
for the Board to reject his suggestion in testimony that two separate
newspapers made the same mistake with respect to the date of the occurrence.
[12]
It
was also no error for the Board to fail to consider the possibility now
advanced that there may have been two police raids. As noted above, that
argument is completely inconsistent with Mr. Osalade's evidence and to
describe it even as speculative is to give it consideration that it does not
deserve.
[13]
Some
of Mr. Osalade's remaining
challenges to the Board's credibility and factual holdings were based on the
same unwarranted premise that the police had carried out two separate raids.
For instance, Mr. Osalade says that this would explain the discrepancies
between his narrative and the newspaper descriptions with respect to the place
of his detention and the time of day of the arrests. These arguments, of
course, fall for the reasons given above.
[14]
Mr.
Osalade's explanations for the other discrepancies noted in his evidence by the
Board amount to nothing more than a re-argument of his case. It was open to
the Board to be critical of the inaccuracies in his evidence and of his failure
to produce reliable corroboration for the existence of his supposed business.
These are all matters which go to the weight of the evidence and are not open
to challenge on judicial review.
[15]
For
all of the reasons given above, this application for judicial review is
dismissed.
[16]
Neither
party proposed a certified question and no issue of general importance arises
on this record.
JUDGMENT
THIS COURT ADJUDGES that this application for judicial review is dismissed.
“ R. L. Barnes ”
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