Sema Fonkem 29 Jan 2026

On the 14th of April 2022, Rwanda and United Kingdom (UK) under Boris Johnson as Prime Ministers and Secretary of Foreign Affairs announced a migration and economic development partnership. Under this agreement, UK was to send tens of thousands of asylum seekers to Rwanda pending their application.

on November 15, 2023, the UK’s Supreme Court declared the policy unlawful by stating that Rwanda was not a safe country for refugees to settle in. On April 25, 2024, the decision was ratified after safeguards were implemented and Rwanda was approved to receive asylum seekers.

Four asylum seekers arrived Rwanda before the deal between Johnson and president Paul Kagame crashed. When Keir Starmer became UK’s new Prime Minister in July 2025 the agreement was cancelled. The Labour party believed it was important to use the money to fund a new border agency to advance the combat against illegal immigration instead of financing a refugee Camp in Rwanda where £120m will be paid to £130m to 300 applicants annually.

The government of Rwanda on Tuesday, 28 January 2026 filed an arbitration case against United Kingdom through the Hague-based Permanent Court, stating that UK failed to formally terminate the agreement by giving a notice in writing.

The Conservative party under Johnson has spent approximately £700m on the deal with Rwanda and in December 2024, the Home Office said another £100m of payments are due under the treaty, with £50m in each of the 2025-2026 and 2026-2027 financial years.

Even though only four migrants were sent to Rwanda in early 2024, it is clear that the £100m required by government of Rwanda in the arbitration proceedings is not required for asylum seekers who have not been sent to the East African country but other expenses unknown to the public at the moment.

It is widely believed that Johnson’s desire to have asylum seekers sent to Rwanda may have been racially motivated because majority of migrants are from Africa. In 2002 as a journalist, he wrote an article where he viewed black children as ‘piccaninies’ with ‘Watermelon Smiles’ and in the the same article, he argued that Africa’s problems are not caused by colonialism but because Britain is no longer in control. In the year 2000 while Johnson worked as editor of The Spectator magazine, an article was published which mentioned black people as individuals with lower IQ.

A promise is a debt and president Paul Kagame wants his UK pounds from Boris Johnson’s failed racially motivated asylum deal.