Spanish govt ‘stole’ my son

BOSEDE OLUSOLA-OBASA writes on the agony of a Nigerian seeking custody of his son seized by the Spanish government 11 years ago

Two lovers, Edo State-born Kelly Agbons and Omosefe Ijesurobo, had their love child, Osagie, in 2000 and thereafter, left Nigeria to seek greener pastures in Spain.

As at the time of their departure, their love adventure had not been consummated in a holy wedlock. However, they lived together and had a common dream.

Typical of emigrants, the journey of Kelly, Omosefe and Osagie to Spain was not all rosy, neither was their initial effort to settle down there.

They actually arrived at their destination in two boats – father first, then mother and baby. They also had difficulty finding a job, and to worsen their case, they had no legal residency papers.

So, the young family settled in Murcia with a relative of Omosefe.

To seek better job in order to fend for Osagie and mum, Kelly moved from Murcia in 2001 to Barcelona. He visited his family bi-weekly to see how they were faring. But on one of his visits in October 2001, he discovered that Omosefe had been deported and Osagie deposited in a children’s home.

Now aged 36, Kelly is battling the Spanish authorities for the custody of their son.  Kelly was 25 when he last saw Osagie.

Omosefe was 21 years old when she was sent back to Nigeria without her son, who was then slightly above one year old. She was accused of practicing prostitution.

That singular action by the Marcia authorities left a sour taste in Kelly’s mouth.  When he spoke to our correspondent on the telephone, he described the years without his first child as “tortuous”.

 It is more worrisome for him that going by the Murcia authorities’ stance, there appears not to be any possibility of him ever reuniting with Osagie.

He recalled that while he was in Barcelona, the police on October 13, 2001, arrested Omosefe as an illegal Nigerian immigrant claiming that she was working as a prostitute on the streets of Murcia and took her to a detention centre to await deportation.

He said that despite the fact that her lawyer filed a request for her release nine days after, informing the court that she had a little baby to look after, the authorities nevertheless deported her.

Kelly said that not only did they separate the little boy from his family; they also gave him out on adoption to an entirely strange family.

He said he had since then been in touch with his mother through the telephone and that she  asked him to endeavour to get the boy back.

“Immediately I heard of the deportation, I returned to salvage my son. But I was denied access to him. The Murcia authorities claimed that the child was abandoned. Before we knew what was happening, another family had adopted Osagie and I have not seen him since then.

“I have been through a lot since that time. To further press home our demand, I invited his mum to Spain in 2008, and we were even on local television together on this issue. I did paternity test in 2004. I am determined to get my son back,” he said.

Kelly, who now lives in Santa Coloma de Gramenet in Barcelona province, noted that another Nigerian woman called Patience was deported alongside Omosefe for the same reason. He said her child was also withheld from her and wondered if the Spanish authority was following a trend.

He said there had been several court cases in Spain on Osagie’s issue and expressed joy that they found something wrong with the approach used by the authority.

A Spanish newspaper, El Pais in English wrote in its June 22, 2012 publication, “When the administration realised that a mistake had occurred, among other reasons because the media denounced this and an identical case involving another Nigerian child separated from his deported mother, it immediately tried to get mother (Omosefe) and child (Osagie) back together by asking the Nigerian Embassy to locate Omosefe. But she never turned up. Years later, in court, the government alleged that once deported, it was impossible to bring the mother back, and that the little boy had not been signed up in the Civil Registry, which left him in a legal limbo and made him a ward of the state.”

But Kelly denied the claim, reiterating that he had been in communicating with Omosefe on the telephone all these years.

He said that after a decade of appeals in various Spanish courts, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled that there had been a breach of the European Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Since there was no hope of reuniting with his erstwhile lover, Kelly now lives with another woman with two children, but he is still yearning for his first born.

In the same vein, he said that Omosefe had been trying to settle down after the ugly experience.

Kelly said that Strasbourg had in a ruling, established that the Spanish state was guilty, but that it could not return Osagie to his biological father. It, therefore, asked the government to pay Kelly 8,000 euros as damages.

“I don’t want money. Spain is terrible; all I want is my son. It is unfortunate that when I ran to the Nigerian Embassy in Spain for help on this issue, they acted indifferent. I must not be allowed to suffer this injustice forever. I am alive, I live in the same country  but I am denied access to my son. I have the means to cater for my son. I want my son back,” Kelly cried out.

Contacted for comments,  the spokesperson, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Ogbole Ahmedu-Ode, said that the Nigerian embassy was not aware of the case.

He said, “I got in touch with our mission in Madrid, Spain and I was informed that there is no record of such a case. Our mission there has handled a number of cases involving Nigerians over the years, but this one is not in our records.

“The Honourable Minister of Foreign Affairs has in line with the directive of Mr. President, directed all our missions to ensure that Nigerians are treated fairly, even in cases where they are accused of committing an offence.

“One of the main objectives of establishing embassies abroad is to ensure that Nigerians and the interest of Nigeria are protected. To the b owledge, our missions have been up and doing.”

Attempts to reach the Spanish Embassy in Abuja for comments were not successful as no official was ready to handle the matter.

For now, Kelly can only hope that somehow, things will change for the better and he will be reunited with his son.