A British university student has been stuck in Kenya since September, due to Home Office delays with his passport.
Michael Omidire has no personal connection to Kenya and had gone to the country for a week's holiday with friends before the start of the new university term.
He is a second-year student studying economics and Italian at Cardiff University but has since missed a full term of lectures due to the ongoing struggle to organise paperwork.
Mr Omidire, who was born and raised in the UK, travelled to Kenya using his Ghanaian passport and when he tried to check in for his flight home, airline staff told him that this was insufficient documentation to allow him on the flight back to Britain.
He has since missed his 21st birthday celebration with his family in London and it is unlikely that he will be able to return to the UK in time for Christmas.
The student told the Guardian: “I was born in Britain, and went to school in Britain. I’m British. It feels like a no-brainer – I should be helped to get home.
"This is the first time I’ve travelled to Africa. It’s been a huge ordeal. I feel like I’ve been treated more like a foreigner than a British citizen.”
He explained to the Guardian that he was born to a Ghanaian mother and a Nigerian father in Milton Keynes in 2001, so because neither of his parents were British citizens, he had to go through the process called naturalisation to acquire citizenship.
He attended his citizenship ceremony this summer as it had taken his family until then to raise over £1000 in fees.
Despite travelling with his Ghanaian passport, a digital copy of his indefinite leave to remain certificate, and a copy of his naturalisation papers, airline officials told him they risked being fined if they allowed him to board.
He said he wrongly assumed he could travel on the Ghanaian document and during the months that he has spent in Kenya, different UK officials have given him different pieces of conflicting advice. Some say he should apply for a visa to the UK, request the right of abode in the UK, apply for a passport as an overseas Kenyan resident, or apply as a British citizen.
He has spent more than £1,000 on phone calls to the UK visas and immigration offices, the passport office and consular services trying to resolve his situation.
Immigration lawyer Colin Yeo told the Guardian: “[Omidire] has made a mistake but I have no doubt that if he were a white British citizen stranded abroad with no passport, officials would have resolved his situation by now.”
He has now been hit with the double blow of facing immigration fines in Kenya because he has overstayed his one-month visa.
“I’ve never faced so many problems. It’s astonishing that I am not allowed back home", he said.
A government spokesperson said: “Published guidance is clear applications for a first time British passport from overseas will take longer. All British citizens who wish to travel into the UK should hold a British passport or have a certificate of entitlement in their foreign passport to prove their right of abode in the UK.”
