A federal court in Canada has denied the asylum claim of Yoruba Nation leader Ayoola Oke after a prolonged legal battle, citing a lack of sufficient evidence to prove that he faced possible persecution in Nigeria and South Africa, where he holds a permanent residency.

According to court documents sighted by Peoples Gazette, the legal tussle began in 2022 after Mr Oke filed for an asylum application for his family upon their arrival in Canada, claiming he was forced to flee from Nigeria because of his political support of the separatist group, Yoruba Nation.

In his asylum filings, Mr Oke, who was living in South Africa with his family before he fled to Canada, also claimed that he was forced to leave the rainbow nation in fear of persecution due to his Nigerian heritage, prompting him to apply for refugee protection in Canada.

Subsequently, the Refugee Protection Division (RPD) accepted the claims of Mr Oke’s wife and children but rejected his claim, stating that he “was not a conventional refugee as he did not demonstrate a serious possibility of persecution in Nigeria.”

Mr Oke immediately filed an appeal before the Refugee Appeal Division (RAD), which also sided with the RPD, noting that the evidence provided by the plaintiff failed to establish a possibility of persecution in Nigeria for being a member of the Yoruba Nation following February 13, 2024, ruling.

Meanwhile, displeased with the RAD’s decision, Mr Oke filed a judicial review before the Federal Court in Ottawa, Ontario, arguing that the RAD unreasonably refused to admit his text messages as new evidence.

He also argued that the rules of evidence should have been applied in a more relaxed manner because he was self-represented.

However, in a ruling on May 16, 2025, Justice Ann McDonald rejected the application of Mr Oke, noting that the RAD was right with their refusal to admit his text messages as new evidence because RPD’s admissibility rules leave no room for discretion.

“The Federal Court has determined that the test for admissibility of new evidence leaves no room for discretion and must be interpreted narrowly, or it departs from the general principle that the Refugee Appeal Division (RAD) proceeds without a hearing based on the record before the RPD,” Ms McDonald said.

The court also dismissed Mr Oke’s argument that the RAD failed to consider the two newspaper articles he presented as evidence, with Ms McDonald ruling that the “RAD considered and weighed the evidence made up of the news articles and the NDP evidence.”

She added, “The role of this court is not to reweigh the evidence, and the Applicant has not identified any errors with the RAD’s handling of evidence.”