“I am superblessed and excited,” commented the bridegroom. “This has been an amazing day �` a really good day.”
In 2016 the Department of Home Affairs banned asylum seekers from getting married in South Africa in what it said was an attempt to root out marriages of convenience. It took Ochogwu’s legal team four years, but on Thursday 17 December his attorney Liesl Fourie was there to witness him and his wife finally get married.
Ochogwu, who works as a pastor at the Dominion Embassy Church in Port Elizabeth, came to South Africa in 2011 after his life became threatened by a growing number of attacks on Christian believers by the rebel group Boko Haram in Nigeria.
“I have seen and am aware of numerous Christians that have been killed by Boko Haram. These Christians were thrown in wells or burned,” he explained. “Boko Haram has also attacked churches, by burning them down or bombing them. My younger brother was killed by Boko Haram during one such attack. At a time when the attacks against Christians and churches were increasing, I came to South Africa as I feared for my life. I arrived in South Africa in 2011.”
He was issued with a temporary residence permit by the Department of Home Affairs. His application for asylum was refused but he appealed against this decision and has been waiting for seven years for a hearing. If his appeal is successful, he will be declared a refugee and be able to live permanently in South Africa.
Ochogwu married his wife, a South African citizen, under customary law in September 2015, but they have been struggling ever since to get officials from the Department of Home Affairs in Port Elizabeth to register the marriage.
First he was asked for proof of the customary union, confirming that he had paid lobola and requiring his father-in-law to provide an affidavit. Then he was sent several times to Pretoria for verification of his refugee permit application. Even after this was done, officials still refused to register his marriage, saying the law had changed and asylum seekers could no longer get married.
“As a pastor in a Christian community, I want to set an example by entering into a civil marriage with my wife as it indicates to all that this will be a monogamous, long-term relationship. We were very upset that we were not allowed to get married civilly,” he said.
In November 2016, Linton Harmse, head of the Refugee Rights Centre at Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth,

discovered that a directive had been sent to Department of Home Affairs offices instructing officials not to register civil unions for asylum seekers. Officials claimed they could not give Harmse a copy of this directive and the document only surfaced publicly in 2017.
Ochogwu’s legal team, led by advocate Lilla Crouse SC, went to court to have the directive declared unconstitutional. The Port Elizabeth High Court did so, but the department appealed against the ruling to the Supreme Court of Appeal. In a scathing judgment, coupled with a punitive court order, the deputy-president of the Supreme Court of Appeal, Judge Xola Petse, last year confirmed that the directive was unconstitutional.
The couple, however, still had to wait for the department to draw up a new directive. Earlier this week the couple was called in for an interview at Home Affairs and on Thursday they were married.
“I feel so relieved,” Ochogwu said. “It gave me security. What we are doing is real. There is a strong love and commitment. There are so many fake marriages out there. We have been together for a long time. Our parents are very excited,” he said.
Ochogwu’s declaration of love to his wife during the ceremony left even the most hardened of civil servants at Home Affairs a little teary-eyed.
He thanked his legal team. “Love is real,” he said. “It is more than just a feeling. It is a commitment.”
“I am so happy,” Zizipho said. “Today at Home Affairs everyone was so eager to help us. This is going to be a wonderful Christmas.”
Fourie, an attorney from the Nelson Mandela University Refugee Rights Centre, accompanied them to make sure all went well.
“We were honoured to witness the solemnisation of Mr and Mrs Ochogwu’s marriage today,” said Fourie.
“The couple didn’t hesitate one second when we asked them to take up the challenge against the Department of Home Affairs decision to refuse asylum seeker marriages. They put a face to the thousands of faceless asylum seekers affected by this patently unconstitutional prohibition.
“Today we not only witnessed a wonderful couple’s marriage, but we also witnessed justice and human rights prevail. We wish Mr and Mrs Ochogwu a long and happy marriage together,” she said.
www.samigration.com V.3370

There are fears that more people will be separated by the introduction of a minimum salary level for those wanting UK family visas. Families living in the UK and abroad have raised concerns about what new rules will mean for them as they try to reunite with foreign spouses. In December, the Home Office, which says migration to the UK is too high, announced a package of measures to reduce net migration, following a spike in arrival numbers. V.5318
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An Ethiopian asylum seeker, who does not speak English, claims he was duped by a senior immigration official into paying an admission of guilt fine when he thought he was paying for bail.Two Western Cape High Court judges have condemned the official`s `deplorable` behaviour, set aside the fine, and ordered the immigration official be taken off the case. Tsegaye Esyas claims Annelise van Dyk treated him like an animal which led to him attempt suicide while in police cells. V.5320
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EREMY MAGGS: I want to stay with crime now. Individuals with a criminal record may be faced with significant challenges when seeking employment, I think that’s a given. Here in South Africa, employers may legally exclude an applicant from consideration for a position if having a clean criminal record is what is termed an inherent requirement of the job. That phrase, inherent requirement, is important, but what exactly does that mean, and when can an applicant be lawfully excluded for having a criminal record? V.5321
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As a South African who has adopted a nomadic work lifestyle alongside my wife, Ingrid Lotze, I’ve been an interested observer of South Africa’s snail-pace digital nomad visa (DNV) development process. Despite the optimism surrounding its introduction, the visa seems to miss several crucial marks for digital nomads like us. V.5322
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DA MP says hours lost continue to result in persons being unable to collect their ID documents due to unmanageable queues The DA has been inundated with complaints that the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) systems are offline, resulting in long queues and delayed processing of documents. Through questions posed to the Minister, the DA can now reveal that the DHA has lost over 77 years’ worth of working hours due to system downtime and load-shedding from 2019 to date. Concerningly, this data only relates to hours lost for the application of smart IDs, meaning decades more of working hours could have been additionally lost in other spheres such as passport or visa applications. V.5314
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Home Affairs’ seemingly endless court battles set the department back more than R110-million between April 2023 and the end of February this year. This was revealed in a written parliamentary response by minister Aaron Motsoaledi. He said the department accumulated a litigation bill of R117 692 996.3, higher than the R72 637 944.51 spent the year before. V.5315
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Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) this week revealed that Cape Town International Airport (CTIA) has achieved a ground-breaking milestone by processing more than 10 million passengers over a single financial year. This is the highest number of regional and international passengers processed since COVID-19 V.5316
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In recent years, South Africa has seen a significant influx of immigrants from various African countries, as well as other parts of the world. This has raised important questions about the country`s immigration policies and their impact on job creation for both locals and immigrants. The South African immigration system, like many other countries, is a complex and ever-evolving process that aims to balance the country`s economic needs with its social and cultural interests. Let`s take a closer look at how this system intersects with job creation in South Africa. The South African government implemented the Immigration Act of 2002, which outlines the country`s immigration policies and procedures. Under this act, foreigners are required to obtain a visa or permit to enter, work, or study in South Africa. The type of visa or permit required depends on the intended purpose of the individual`s visit and their country of origin. V.5312
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Due to system downtime and load-shedding, the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) lost nearly 141,000 hours of Smart ID application and production time between the 2019/20 and 2022/23 financial years. Minister Aaron Motsoaledi revealed this figure in a recent response to questions raised in Parliament by Democratic Alliance MP Adrian Roos. Motsoaledi provided a breakdown of smart ID production and application hours lost to technical difficulties and load-shedding per province for each financial year from 2019/2020. These disruptions hit home Affairs offices in the Eastern Cape the hardest, with over 34,000 hours to rotational power cuts and system downtime. Mpumalanga offices lost the next-highest number of hours at 17 V.5313
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Home Affairs Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi has said the public has shown great support for the final White Paper on citizenship, immigration and refugee protection which appeared in the Government Gazette on Wednesday. Briefing the media, he addressed what he saw as a long-overdue need to replace an outdated Citizenship Act, as well as enact proposed changes to existing legislation. V.5306
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