Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has asked a Nigerian woman, Lola Akinlade, and her family to leave the country after the acceptance letter she used to process her study visa and work permit were found to be fake.
Speaking to CBC News in Canada, Akinlade, who obtained a diploma in Social Services from Nova Scotia Community College in 2019, said she was unaware her letter was fake. She said an agent for the University of Regina in 2016 provided her with the letter. She was however contacted by the IRCC a few weeks before her graduation from her new institution.
“When the IRCC contacted me, I requested them to re-examine my case, arguing that I was a victim of a ‘rogue agent’ who supplied me with a fake acceptance letter to the Canadian school.
“Please review my file. I just want this to be resolved,” she said.
She explained that she met an immigration consultant at her office in Nigeria in 2015 and that was how her journey to the North American country started.
Akinlade was working as a medical sales representative for a pharmaceutical company in Lagos with a business administration certificate from a Nigerian university. She said the consultant had promised to help her obtain a master’s degree in business administration in Canada.
She described how she provided the agent with documents such as her passport and university transcripts, along with payment. Several months later, he provided her with a study permit for Canada, plane tickets, and an acceptance letter from the University of Regina.
“I flew to Canada in late December 2016, expecting to start classes in January 2017. However, I was stopped in Winnipeg en route to Regina when I received a call from the agent, who told me there were no spaces available at the university and that I would have to go on a waitlist,” she said.
Upon arriving in Canada, she began searching independently for a new school and programme and stayed with relatives in Winnipeg until she was accepted at Nova Scotia Community College for social services, starting in September 2017.
She said she chose social services because it better aligned with her previous work in the medical field.
Akinlade stated that she did not contact the University of Regina directly until two years later, when she received a letter from the IRCC informing her that the acceptance letter was fake.
In March 2023, an IRCC officer wrote to Akinlade, stating that the department believed she knew the document was fake “on the balance of probabilities.”
Her husband, Samson Akinlade, and their eight-year-old Nigerian-born son, David, joined her in Nova Scotia in 2018 but have now lost their temporary resident status. Their younger son, born in Canada in 2021, has Canadian citizenship but lacks medical coverage due to his parents’ status.
When CBC contacted Babatunde Isiaq Adegoke, the consultant, he confirmed providing Akinlade with the acceptance letter but said it was supplied by a company located in Ejigbo, Lagos State, called Success Academy Education Consult, which he had hired.
However, he denied telling Akinlade that she would have to go on a waitlist at the University of Regina.
