‘I paid tax for years, but cannot get work permit’

A Nigerian man who spent a decade in Malta paying taxes is struggling to get his work permit renewed because his company cannot justify employing him instead of an EU citizen. “I would be better off if I came to the country illegally,” Michael Ajibode, 40, said. Mr Ajibode had moved to Malta in 2003 after a courtship with a Maltese woman he had met in Libya. However, after four years and 10 months of marriage – two months before he was due for citizenship – his wife got a court order to remove him from their home, claiming he was abusive. As she had done with two previous marriages, his wife also filed for annulment but Mr Ajibode proved his innocence and won the case on appeal, meaning the two are still legally married. In the meantime, he was also wrongly accused of theft by the couple’s mechanic. He was acquitted of all charges after it was proven in court that CCTV footage produced as evidence had been edited. The court case cost him his job as a material handler at Methode Electronics. “The agreement with Methode was that I should go and fight the criminal case and when I was cleared they would reinstate me,” he said. Methode stuck to its end of the deal but the Employment...