Nigerian fake doctor married SA woman illegally

A NIGERIAN citizen will have to return to his country of birth after South African authorities revoked his questionable citizenship nearly a decade after it was granted.

This was based on allegations that he had illegally married a young South African woman.

It, however, transpired that Antony Nwafor, although apparently telling Home Affairs he was a “bachelor” at the time of his wedding in this country, was already married to another woman in Nigeria.

Home Affairs also questioned his South African marriage as his “new wife” was underage and needed permission from her parents to get married.

The 57-year-old Nwafor, however, insisted that he never told the department he was a bachelor. According to him, he was divorced from his first wife when he remarried.

He said that shortly after “a church blessing” between him and his first wife, a “serious material issue” occurred which affected the marital relationship, resulting in the immediate dissolution of the marriage.

He said he had married his second wife, a South African citizen, legally shortly afterwards. According to him, she had just turned 18 and her mother gave her blessing to the union.

Thus, Nwafor said, he and his children, who came with him from Nigeria, were allowed South African citizenship.

The issue arose after Home Affairs revoked his citizenship after discovering that it was afforded to him under questionable circumstances.

Nwafor turned to the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, to challenge this.

Judge Sulet Potterill, however, earlier dismissed his arguments and found that the department acted within its rights and followed all the procedures when it revoked his citizenship.

Nwafor applied for leave to appeal against the ruling, but Judge Pottrill refused.

He then turned to the Supreme Court of Appeal, which now also refused him leave to appeal.

The court was told that Nwafor was born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1965. He acquired South African citizenship on being granted a certificate of naturalisation by Home Affairs in 2009, after he first obtained a permanent residence permit on the strength of his marriage to a South African citizen in 2003.

In spite of this, the department now said the validity of this marriage is strenuously disputed.

Years after obtaining his citizenship, the department in 2016 informed him that it was going to withdraw this as he had “obtained the permanent residence permit by means of false representation”.

The department said this was as he was still married when he exchanged vows with his young wife while claiming he was a bachelor.

In any case, the department said, his second wife was a minor and needed permission for the union – all allegations which were denied by him.

Nwafor said he had followed all the required procedures as expected of him when he applied for permanent residence and citizenship.

Regarding his first marriage, he said they experienced marital problems shortly after the ceremony.

In a bid to resolve their problems, they attended the Our Saviour Church in Lagos, where their marriage was blessed.

But the marital problems persisted, and he claimed they were thus “divorced”.

Shortly afterwards, he came to South Africa to marry his new bride.

Home Affairs subsequently discovered that he had “married” his South African wife less than two months after he got married to his first wife.

According to the authorities, he was still very much married to his first wife when he married his second wife.

The deportation is not his first brush with the law.

In 2015, Nwafor was arrested on a charge of fraud after posing as a medical doctor in Pretoria and Limpopo.