Another Nigerian scam?

It's clear that at least some asylum seekers are motivated by money. Take the following story from the Daily Mail. A Nigerian woman travelled to England, had quintuplets in an English hospital at a cost of £200,000 and is now arguing for the right to stay in England because she claims she would be homeless if she returns to Nigeria.

However, it turns out that her Nigerian husband is a wealthy businessman:

University-educated Ohi Nasir Ilavbare is chief executive of his own logistics company whose clients include British American Tobacco and DHL.

He also owns and runs an upmarket hotel and business centre in an exclusive suburb of Lagos, where his company, Spry Logistics, is based.

Suites at the facility in a gated complex cost £100 a night. The average annual wage in Nigeria is around £300.

A neighbouring trader described Mr Ilavbare as ‘very rich’, while an employee confirmed ‘he is the managing director here, he owns this place’. Repeated attempts to contact him via his office have proved unsuccessful.

He and his wife seem to have remained in close touch while she has been in England. Until recently the profile picture on his Facebook page was of five babies lying on a bedspread.

It must be the case, then, that people overseas are aware of the benefits to be had from applying to stay in the UK - even to the point that wealthier people in Nigeria are willing to try their hand at benefiting from the UK system of asylum.

It reinforces for me that the system of international asylum needs to be overhauled. All first world countries should pay into a fund to finance the resettlemenf of asylum seekers. However, asylum should only be offered in countries with a similar standard of living and similar cultural/ethnic traditions. That would ensure that legitimate asylum seekers could find refuge; that there would be the least problem with assimilation; and that there would be little incentive for the system to be rorted for financial advantage.