In March 2022, Mrs Funmilayo Buraimo-Danmusa received a phone call from a legal business partner in the United Kingdom, Olalekan Ayuba.
Ayuba had called to inform her that he had just registered his company, Click Operations Limited (UK) with the National Health Service and was now approved by the Home Office to conduct international recruitments.
This registration qualified Ayuba’s agency to recruit immigrants who want to secure caregiver jobs in the UK who are expected to get a certificate of sponsorship.
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The CoS is a key electronic document that affirms that the intending immigrant has been offered employment to be a caregiver in the country.
Sunday PUNCH gathered that the CoS is issued by an employer following the offer of a definite job which is on the government’s approved list.
The employer is also expected to be approved by the UK government to provide sponsorship.
When the CoS is issued to a foreign or immigrant worker, they use it to apply for their visa within three months before the start date of the job listed on the certificate.
Buraimo-Danmusa said after Ayuba showed her all the necessary documents and digital links proving his firm’s registration with the Home Office, she double-checked all his claims. It turned out that Ayuba’s firm was indeed legitimate.
Checks by Sunday PUNCH on the Gov.UK website confirmed that Click Operations, based in Leeds, Yorkshire, was incorporated on August 21, 2022.
On its website, Clicks Operations Healthcare describes itself as “a reputable care recruitment agency that provides high-quality medical and healthcare staffing to some of the UK’s most prominent care service providers.”
The agency’s website also claims to “provide supported living services to people with physical, mental, and emotional disabilities in homes located throughout Leeds.”
“As a travel agent, I had a personal relationship with Ayuba and his family. He speaks to my family as well. He promised my mother and husband that the CoS from Click Operations would never fail. But it failed,” Buraimo-Danmusa told Sunday PUNCH.
Some other applicants who also hoped to receive their COS from Ayuba’s agency said they did not get it even after the deadline which barred international students from bringing dependants into the UK expired in January 2024.
Findings by Sunday PUNCH showed that after a CoS is assigned to the employee, the employer is expected to pay a fee for the certificate, but no employer is legally permitted to make an applicant pay them a fee in return for employing them.
According to ICS Legal, a UK firm that specialises in Immigration Law, British Nationality and European Law, “When the employer completes the Certificate of Sponsorship, the salary must contain the guaranteed basic gross pay.
“No other pay and benefits must be included when assessing salary. The Home Office has set out transitional arrangements for those switching from Tier 2 General Visa to the Skilled Worker Visa.”
“Our major hope of treating him was moving him to the UK. Lekan Benjamin Ayuba and Click Operations shattered it, we lost a child we’ve treated locally with millions of naira to a false promise.”
Buraimo-Danmusa further alleged that attempts to reach Ayuba were scuttled as he had blocked all the primary applicants and agents on all their social media accounts and refused to take their calls.
“Even his wife blocked me on her WhatsApp. Ayuba has refused to make refunds and refused to issue CoS to the primary applicants. He dashed our hopes, wasted our time and defrauded us. Now, I’ve become a debtor all because I trusted him,” she said with a regretful tone.
‘I lost my entire savings to him’
Another applicant, Isaac Olatunji, told Sunday PUNCH that he learnt about Ayuba’s company in March 2023, through his friend’s wife who was based in the UK and vouched for his credibility.
Olatunji said, “They said he was a pastor but that didn’t build my trust. But what convinced me that he was genuine was what my friend’s wife said and this man looked real with the people working with him. I paid him N5m on June 8, 2023. He had initially demanded N10m but we bargained. I had to empty my entire savings and even took a loan.
“He promised to send me my CoS in August, then it shifted to September. I called him and he said they were still waiting for the Home Office. When it was November, I reminded him again, he said I shouldn’t worry. Yet, I heard that people get their CoS within two months.
Endless spending, tragic loss
Believing that she was working within a legitimate framework, Buraimo-Danmusa said she opted to work with Ayuba because she was interested in the offer herself.
“I made payment for documentation, health insurance, and application fees for myself and my sister. I applied for my sister because of her only son who was a special child, and medical practitioners had failed us in Nigeria, so I wanted us to try out treatments for him in the UK.
“After I applied, Ayuba insisted I make the offer open using my travelling agency channel and the applicants only need to pay for training fees, application fees, health insurance, visa, and accommodation as I had paid. I got him new clients.
“Some of them left other offers with me and jumped on Lekan Benjamin Ayuba’s and Click Operations’ offer after paying thousands of pounds for all his service charges; it appeared the best anyone would opt for,” she stated.
Buraimo-Danmusa also alleged that she and other applicants spent millions of naira on several tuberculosis tests, international driving licences, and police reports, and some clients even wrote the International English Language Testing System twice.
They allegedly spent hundreds of thousands converting their Nigerian academic certificates to the UK standard through the National Recognition Information Centre.
Explaining further, Buraimo-Danmisa disclosed that due to Ayuba’s false promises, many of the applicants resigned from work and stopped paying their children’s school fees as they awaited their CoS so they could start a new life in the UK with their families.
She added, “While Lekan Benjamin Ayuba was deceitfully delaying us with excuses, my 18-year-old nephew whom we planned to take abroad for treatment fell sick and I was also being operated upon in the theatre at the same time.
“This divided the family such that some were with me, while the others took him to the hospital, but it was too late. He was brought in dead.
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