Nigerian student returns to boisterous welcome

Deported Nigerian asylum seeker Olukunle Elukanlo has returned to Ireland and a rousing welcome home at Dublin airport.

Just over two weeks after he was deported to Lagos, Mr Elukanlo walked through passport control shortly before 11am yesterday.

A small, frail figure wearing his Palmerstown community school uniform, Mr Elukanlo emerged into the arrivals area to the wild cheers of classmates who had campaigned for his return.

They immediately hoisted the Tricolour-bearing Leaving Cert student shoulder-high as a scrum of photographers and journalists pressed forward to interview and photograph him.

In chaotic scenes, gardaí struggled to hold back the crowd surrounding the 20-year-old, who was clearly delighted with his reception.

"I thank all my friends and my mates at school and all the parents, as well as the Minister for Justice, for bringing me back," he said.

Mr Elukanlo said he was very happy to be back and was determined to do his Leaving Certificate exams in June at his school.

"I'm staying forever. I'm not going anywhere," he said.

Mr Elukanlo had arrived ahead of time on a flight from Amsterdam, having begun his air journey from the Nigerian capital, Abuja, the night before.

Friends had wired him €200 to take the train to Abuja, where the Irish Embassy had provided him with the necessary student visa to allow him to return to this country.

His return follows a change of mind by the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, who had initially defended the deportation of Mr Elukanlo and 34 other Nigerians on a chartered flight two weeks ago.

Under pressure from a campaign organised by the Palmerstown students, Mr McDowell reversed his decision last week and issued the student with a six-month visa which will allow him complete his Leaving Cert in June.

Sources have told The Irish Times that Mr Elukanlo will not be required to leave again after this visa has expired.

After his tumultuous welcome in the airport, Mr Elukanlo and the students left in a minibus for Palmerstown, where he is staying with schoolfriends.

He was due to appear on The Late Late Show last night and a party has been organised in his honour in a Lucan hotel tonight.

Parents of students at the school and the school chaplain, Fr Des Hackett, were also among the attendance at the airport yesterday.

Campaigners seeking the return of other Nigerians who were deported last month are due to rally outside the GPO in Dublin today.

Ms Rosanna Flynn of Residents against Racism said the campaign would continue until all the deportees were returned and control of deportation policy was taken out of the hands of the Department of Justice.

Mr Elukanlo is not the first deportee to be returned to Ireland.

Five years ago, a Romanian asylum seeker, Dimitru Popa, was being deported when the High Court ordered his return.

Mr Popa was en route to Bucharest via Amsterdam when gardaí were told that the High Court had ordered his return on foot of a non-existent habeas corpus order allegedly granted by the court.