Beneli
06-30-2007, 09:04 AM
By Sun News Publishing
Friday, June 29, 2007
A Nigerian who arrived in Ireland as an asylum seeker seven years ago became the country's first black mayor on Thursday, after being elected in a central Irish town.
Rotimi Adebari, 43, who was born in Okeodan in Ogun State, took the chain of office in Portlaoise, a city with a population of 12,000. Portlaoise is an hour's drive from Dublin.
He won six votes to three in the nine member council and described his victory as "a day that the Lord has made.
"Ireland is a country not only of 1,000 welcomes, but also of equal opportunity," he said, referring to an Irish saying about Ireland's traditional hospitality for foreigners.
"It is the highest honour you can get in the town to be number one citizen," the father of four who fled Nigeria with his wife and two children in 2000 told AFP before his election was
confirmed.
Elected as a councillor in 2004, Adebari has a masters degree in intercultural studies from Dublin City University and works with the local authority in County Laois co-ordinating an integration project for immigrants.
"Ireland is really changing. The immigrant community in the town has been growing, especially since the accession countries joined the European Union on enlargement in 2004," he said.
The fact that he had been elected as a councillor was an indication of the reception he had received in Ireland, which traditionally has been a country of emigration with very few foreign immigrants.
"That is not to say that I did not have my own share of the prejudice that would be out there against maybe Nigerians, or immigrants or asylum seekers," he said.
"But I don't let the attitude of a very small minority overshadow the fact that the people are wonderful."
The Northern Ireland peace process is indirectly the reason that Adebari and his family became Irish residents. They were given permission to stay in Ireland in 2001 after their third Irish-born child became a "citizen-baby" under constitutional provisions introduced in the Irish Republic in the wake of the 1997 Good Friday accord.
The change, which was reversed by a 2004 referendum, meant that children of foreign parents born in Ireland were automatically entitled to become Irish citizens, giving parents the entitlement to stay. About 18,000 immigrant parents got permission to remain in Ireland under the "citizen-baby" clause.
http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpage...06-2007-03.htm
Friday, June 29, 2007
A Nigerian who arrived in Ireland as an asylum seeker seven years ago became the country's first black mayor on Thursday, after being elected in a central Irish town.
Rotimi Adebari, 43, who was born in Okeodan in Ogun State, took the chain of office in Portlaoise, a city with a population of 12,000. Portlaoise is an hour's drive from Dublin.
He won six votes to three in the nine member council and described his victory as "a day that the Lord has made.
"Ireland is a country not only of 1,000 welcomes, but also of equal opportunity," he said, referring to an Irish saying about Ireland's traditional hospitality for foreigners.
"It is the highest honour you can get in the town to be number one citizen," the father of four who fled Nigeria with his wife and two children in 2000 told AFP before his election was
confirmed.
Elected as a councillor in 2004, Adebari has a masters degree in intercultural studies from Dublin City University and works with the local authority in County Laois co-ordinating an integration project for immigrants.
"Ireland is really changing. The immigrant community in the town has been growing, especially since the accession countries joined the European Union on enlargement in 2004," he said.
The fact that he had been elected as a councillor was an indication of the reception he had received in Ireland, which traditionally has been a country of emigration with very few foreign immigrants.
"That is not to say that I did not have my own share of the prejudice that would be out there against maybe Nigerians, or immigrants or asylum seekers," he said.
"But I don't let the attitude of a very small minority overshadow the fact that the people are wonderful."
The Northern Ireland peace process is indirectly the reason that Adebari and his family became Irish residents. They were given permission to stay in Ireland in 2001 after their third Irish-born child became a "citizen-baby" under constitutional provisions introduced in the Irish Republic in the wake of the 1997 Good Friday accord.
The change, which was reversed by a 2004 referendum, meant that children of foreign parents born in Ireland were automatically entitled to become Irish citizens, giving parents the entitlement to stay. About 18,000 immigrant parents got permission to remain in Ireland under the "citizen-baby" clause.
http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpage...06-2007-03.htm