One last chance to avoid deportation
8:39am Sunday 17th February 2008 in Where I Live By Elizabeth Pears
Angry: Damilola Ajagbonna says he is drained but not defeated
A two-year battle to stay in the country has ended in defeat for the former headboy of a Hornsey school - but the star pupil has vowed to fight on.
Last Tuesday, Damilola Ajagbonna, 19, was told by his solicitor that his High Court appeal to stay in the country had been rejected and, after nearly eight years of living in the UK, he is to be deported.
His only hope is that Home Secretary Jacqui Smith will use her discretion to overturn the verdict.
The young man, the first Greig City Academy pupil to be offered a place to study at Cambridge University, pledged to give the last-ditch attempt all he has and is gathering a petition to present to Mrs Smith.
But Mr Ajagbonna, who now lives in Luton, is still living in fear that the next knock on his front door will be from immigration officers coming to remove him from the country he now calls home.
He said: "I consider myself to be British and to be told I am not, that I am an immigrant, and what some consider the scourge of British society, is hard to accept.
"I have decided I have a right to be angry. I respect the law, and understand the decision made was well drafted', but as to how just it was, I can't say.
"The minute I walked into my solicitor's office I got that sinking feeling. He couldn't look me in the eye and that just said it all.
"This has been two years of uncertainty for me living with my life in the balance - not being able to go to university, not being able to work. I am drained but I am not defeated.
"I will give it my best shot and if I fail, then I have no choice but to accept my fate."
Mr Ajagbonna moved to Muswell Hill from Nigeria on April 9, 1999, aged eleven, to live with his aunt and uncle, as his mother was battling sickle cell anaemia.
Had he arrived just 37 days earlier, he would have been granted citizenship under immigration legislation which states that "illegal" children raised in the UK may continue to live here as long as they have been here for seven years before their 18th birthday.
In an ironic twist, on the same day he received the devastating news, he also received the St Melletus Medal, presented to him by the Bishop of London for his oustanding contributions to Greig City Academy.
Mr Ajagbonna was a top student at the school, in High Street, Hornsey, achieving 13 GCSEs and three A-levels while studying there.
The model pupil also mentored younger and struggling students and returned to volunteer there while awaiting the outcome of his appeal. His goal was to eventually return as a teacher.
But he said: "Over the past two years, I have changed. I used to be a driven person, but my self-esteem has been dented. At one point in my life, I could say to myself in three years I want to achieve this, for example, going to Cambridge, and I believed that if I worked hard enough, I could achieve it.
"In this situation, I have realised that no matter how hard I work, no matter how good a person I am, there are some things that cannot be controlled."
