The UK is sending Adoboli back to Ghana

Kweku Adoboli, the investment banker who went to the UK when he was four years old, but found himself at the wrong side of the law while working for Swiss banker UBS and was jailed for causing the loss of (£1.8bn) approximately $2.3 billion has been detained by the Home Office in London and is being processed for deportation to Ghana.

The $2.3 billion-loss is the second biggest loss in the history of rogue trading. The rogue trader, Jerome Kerviel caused Societe Generale €4.9 billion loss in 2008. Jerome also went to jail.

Even though Adoboli has served his jail term – he went to prison for seven years, and has shown remorse, the UK government has been adamant in returning him to Ghana, despite his lawyer Jacqueline McKenzie arguing that it is unfair as his deportation raises so many issues about people who have grown in the UK and are settled there as he has. The Home Office didn’t heed his MP, Hannah Bardell’s plea to let him stay in the country.

Other people have objected to his removal from the UK on moral grounds, because he made a mistake, they say, the benefits of which would have gone to his employer on whose behalf he did the acts, besides he has been working hard to contribute to the society by speaking to students and other companies on good corporate governance principles.

The Home Office believes that it has considered all the factors in the case and therefore it is satisfied that its decision to return Adoboli to Ghana is justified.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi