Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: Case No: UI-2025-001604
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/53927/2023
IA/00149/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
15th June 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE LANE

Between

FN
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

Secretary of State for the Home Department
Respondent

Representation:

For the Appellant: Mr Jebb
For the Respondent: Ms Ahmed, Senior Presenting Officer

Heard at Royal Courts of Justice (Belfast) on 14 May 2026

Order Regarding Anonymity

Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the appellant is granted anonymity.

No-one shall publish or reveal any information, including the name or address of the appellant, likely to lead members of the public to identify the appellant. Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.

DECISION AND REASONS
1. By a decision promulgated on 9 February 2026, I set aside the decision of the First-tier Tribunal. My error of law is annexed to this decision and marked ‘Annexe A’. Following a resumed hearing at Belfast on 14 May 2026, I now remake the decision in the appellant’s appeal against the Secretary of State’s refusal of his claim for international protection.
The Resumed Hearing : 14 May 2026
2. I shall not rehearse again the background to the appellant’s claim, which is detailed in my error of law decision. The appellant has filed a supplementary bundle of documents which includes a further statement of the appellant dated 7 May 2026 and a number of documents which appear to relate to the appellant’s support for his daughter; the appellant claims to be at present separated from his wife, the child’s mother.
3. Although I set aside the First-tier Tribunal’s decision, I preserved its finding that the delay of the appellant in claiming asylum in the United Kingdom was not ‘the action of someone genuinely fleeing in fear’ from Nigeria. There was no oral evidence at the resumed hearing, which proceeded by way of submissions only. The submissions of both representatives concerned only the claimed Article 3 ECHR risk to the appellant posed by his family and the availability of internal flight within Nigeria, in particular to the Ondo region. Article 8 ECHR was not revisited.
The appellant’s evidence
4. I attach limited weight to the latest statement of the appellant. That evidence was not tested by cross examination (I note that the appellant attended the resumed hearing). The statement repeats the basis of the appellant’s claim but consists of nothing more than a series of assertions – that the appellant believes that his family ‘would track us down if we relocated to Nigeria’, that his daughter would be subjected to FGM, that the appellant has not had any contact with his family since he came to the United Kingdom in December 2019 and that his friend, who had first alerted him to threats from his family, had now moved to live in Canada.
5. I understand that the appellant’s wife and daughter also have no permanent status in the United Kingdom (the wife’s appeal having been dismissed by the First-tier Tribunal) but it is not clear why the daughter would leave the United Kingdom with the appellant given that she is in the de facto custody of her mother from whom the appellant claims to separated.
6. Having regard to the preserved finding of the First-tier Tribunal and to the decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge Grimes, who dismissed the appeal of the appellant’s wife which had been advanced on almost identical grounds to that of the appellant, I attach little weight to the appellant’s evidence. In my opinion, I find that he has not discharged the burden of proving that he would be at real risk if he returned to his home area of Nigeria. I note that the Secretary of State has accepted that the appellant has in the past been threatened by his family in Nigeria but there is nothing beyond the appellant’s latest assertions to indicate that there is any continuing threat to him. The appellant himself states that he does not believe that his brothers have any idea where he is currently living. I also do not accept the appellant’s evidence that he is separated from his wife and daughter. His claim is nothing more than an assertion which, given his unreliability as a witness, I am not prepared to accept as true or accurate. The appellant’s daughter is not a qualifying child for the purposes of section 117B(6) of the 2002 Act and it seems very likely that she will return to Nigeria with her mother in due course. If he returns first, the appellant will be able to maintain contact with his daughter by telephone, internet and post.
Internal flight
7. In any event, the appellant’s appeal fails on the alternative basis of the availability of internal flight within Nigeria. Even if I were to accept the appellant’s evidence at its highest and to find that he would be at real risk in his home area from members of his family, I would find that relocation within Nigeria would not be unduly harsh. First-tier Tribunal Judge Grimes, dismissing the appellant’s wife’s appeal, found that the appellant’s family did not have such influence throughout Nigeria that they would be aware that the appellant had returned to a region other that his home area. Given the common factual matrix between the appeals, that finding is wholly relevant to my own analysis of the appellant’s appeal and I adopt it for the reasons she gave. I find that there is simply no cogent evidence to support that appellant’s claim that his family either has the power and influence with state and local authorities which would lead those authorities to inform them that the appellant had returned or cause those authorities to assist the family in locating the appellant anywhere within a country of more than 200 million people. I find that the appellant’s family would be unaware that he had returned to Nigeria and that the appellant could live safely in the Ondo region (as proposed by the Secretary of State in her refusal letter) in the knowledge that his family would never become aware that he was living there. The appellant has, moreover, advanced no reasons which might indicate that internal flight would, given his own personal circumstances, be unduly harsh. He would be returning to the country of his nationality and is familiar with its language and customs. There is nothing to suggest that he has health or other problems which might hinder his reintegration in Nigerian society.
8. For the reasons I have given I remake the decision dismissing the appellant’s appeal.
Notice of Decision
I have remade the decision. The appellant’s appeal against the decision of the Secretary of State dated 21 June 2024 is dismissed.

C. N. Lane

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

Dated: 29 May 2026

ANNEXE A

DECISION AND REASONS

1. The appellant is a male citizen of Nigeria who was born in 1965. He appealed to the First-tier Tribunal against a decision of the Secretary of State dated 21 June 2024 refusing his international protection claim. The First-tier Tribunal dismissed his appeal. He now appeals to the Upper Tribunal.

2. At the initial hearing, Mr Jebb, counsel for the appellant, submitted that the First-tier Tribunal had failed to address the appellant’s appeal adequately. The appellant had come to the United Kingdom after his wife and daughter. The latter had unsuccessfully sought international protection and their appeal had failed. The wife and daughter had claimed to fear the appellant’s family, which had been upset by the appellant and his wife’s refusal to submit their daughter for FGM. First-tier Tribunal Judge Grimes had considered the wife’s appeal but had rejected it and there had been no successful appeal. Mr Jebb complained that the judge in the instant appeal had done no more than rely on Judge Grimes’s decision under the principles of Devaseelan (Second Appeal, ECHR, Extra-Territorial Effect) [2002] UKIAT 702. He had ignored the appellant’s own evidence that the family sought to harm him on return. Indeed, the judge had failed entirely to answer the questions he set himself to answer at [10]: ‘(i) Is there sufficiency of protection [for the appellant on return]? (ii) was internal relocation a solution? (iii) will any protected human rights be breached?’

3. For the Secretary of State, Ms Arif submitted that the judge had been entitled to rely on the decision of Judge Grimes given the similarity between the claims. The judge’s analysis was adequate.

4. I find that the judge’s decision is flawed for the reasons advanced by Mr Jebb. The judge stated that the appeal was concerned with three questions [see [2] above] but then made no attempt to answer them. It was clear that the judge did not find the appellant to be a witness of truth (at [11] he describes the delay of the appellant is claiming asylum as being ‘not the actions of someone genuinely fleeing in fear.’) That finding was based on the evidence and was legitimate. I shall preserve it but it constitutes the entirety of the judge’s analysis of the evidence. He ignored the claimed email threats referred to in the grounds of appeal [8] and made no findings as to whether those threats were or were not genuine. Judge Grimes’s decision was relevant and it may be that the judge did not find any part of the appellant’s account credible (which may explain his failure to address sufficiency of protection or internal flight) but, if that was the case, he should have said so expressly. There may be significant areas of overlap between the appellant’s case and that of his wife but the judge should have identified exactly where those areas lie and he should have made clear findings of fact on the areas which lay beyond any overlap.

5. I set aside the decision of the First-tier Tribunal but preserve the finding at [11]. The decision will be remade in the Upper Tribunal. The appellant is directed to file and serve a statement bringing his claim up to date and stating exactly whom he now fears in Nigeria and why. The statement shall also address internal flight and sufficiency of protection in Nigeria. The appellant shall file and serve the statement no less than 10 days prior to the resumed hearing in the Upper Tribunal. Both parties may rely on additional fresh evidence provided that, as with the appellant’s statement, such evidence is filed and served no less than 10 days prior to the resumed hearing. Any request for an interpreter must be made by the appellant’s representatives withing 7 days of receiving this error of law decision.

Notice of Decision

The decision of the First-tier Tribunal is set aside. None of the findings of fact shall stand save for the finding at [11]. The decision will be remade in the Upper Tribunal (Upper Tribunal Judge Lane) at a resumed hearing at Belfast. Directions are set out at [5] above.