''It is Good To Be Home'' - Kweku Adoboli Talks About His Deportation From The UK

For the past 7 years Kweku Adoboli has had such a traumatic time. The former investment manager who was convicted of illegally trading away US$2 billion (GB£1.3 billion) while working as a trader for Swiss investment bank, UBS is back in Ghana.

Speaking in an interview with Joy News anchor, Israel Laryea, Kweku Adoboli talked about how intense his deportation process was. He revealed it took ”five guards” just to escort him from the UK to Ghana. Adoboli said the escorts ”squeezed” and ”marched him into the back steps of the plane”

Kweku Adoboli who was jailed for four years and also lost several appeals against the UK Home Office decision to deport him to Ghana also spoke about how unexpected the deportation was. He disclosed that he pleaded with the escorts just to give him an opportunity to call his family.

”I’m saying to them, listen, you need to let me call my lawyers, you need to let me call my parents, you need to let me call my girlfriend because they don’t know what is happening, they don’t know that I’m getting this Kenyan Airways flight” – Adoboli revealed

Prior to his return to Ghana, a headline which tainted our beautiful Gold Coast made waves. It alluded to the fact that Kweku Adoboli had said that being imprisoned in the UK was better than returning to Ghana. When asked about this statement, Adoboli explained:

”It is worse to be deported from the UK than it is to be imprisoned in the UK. It is the deportation from the UK, it’s never had anything to do with Ghana at all. I’ve consistently said, nobody in my position should be forced to choose between the two pillars of their heritage. I’m a proud Ghanaian, even though I don’t have a passport, I am a proud British man as well. Why? Because I grew up there as a child but I was born in Ghana. Nobody should have to choose between the two because they are both central to my identity….That’s what I was trying to protect, the British part of my identity, not to reject Ghana, Ghana is my home too.”

”What people don’t understand about the deportation process is that, once you are deported from one of the G20 Nations or anywhere in the West, you can’t return to that country for 10 years, minimum. On top of that, you then have to apply to go back. The test to decide whether you can go back, is the same test they do to decide if they should deport you, so once they’ve deported you, actually, you are never going back….Even worse, once you are deported from one of the G20 Nations, because of information sharing between all of them, you can’t return to any of them. So basically because I’ve been deported, I can’t go to Europe, America, Japan and definitely not the U.K.”

All in all, Kweku Adoboli is looking on the bright side, he said that it was ”good to be home” and even enjoyed his first meal which was Banku and Palm nut soup.

Things got quite emotional when he got candid about his family, he said:

“The deportation process itself is extremely violent. When I arrived here, I was overwhelmed with emotions. I came home and my family was here, there were about 30 people, they came to welcome me home. Although it is heartbreaking to have been deported from the UK, my old home and although I am still fighting to get that back as well as here, there is nothing more humbling than coming home to your family and realizing that they also must celebrate the moment that you come home because it is the first time in seven years that I am free and because I am free they are free too”