1The Honorable Fernando J. Gaitan, Jr., United States District Judge for the

Western District of Missouri, sitting by designation.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 00-3469

___________

Ambrose Okafor Mbonu, *

*

Petitioner, *

*

v. * Petition for Review of

* an Order of the Immigration

Immigration and Naturalization * and Naturalization Service.

Service, *

* [UNPUBLISHED]

Respondent. *

___________

Submitted: May 17, 2001

Filed: August 28, 2001

___________

Before MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD and BYE, Circuit Judges, and GAITAN,1

District Judge.

___________

PER CURIAM.

Ambrose Okafor Mbonu appeals from the decision of the Board of Immigration

Appeals (BIA) denying his petition for asylum. We affirm.
-2-

The BIA denied Mr. Mbonu's petition because it found that the evidence did not

support his assertions that he was persecuted in the past in his native land of Nigeria

and that he had a well-founded fear of future persecution if he returned to Nigeria. See

8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(1), (b)(1), § 1101(a)(42)(A). We believe that these factual findings

are supported by substantial evidence in the record. See INS v. Elias-Zacarias, 502

U.S. 478, 481 (1992). 

There is, in fact, very little evidence in the record that Mr. Mbonu was subject

to past persecution. He testified that his mother was killed during the Biafran War,

which raged from 1967 until 1970, and that his father, an Ibo chief, fled to Cameroon

because he feared retaliation from his own tribesmen for the devastating loss of life that

occurred during that war. But this testimony provides little proof, if any, that

Mr. Mbonu himself was subject to persecution at any time in the past. The BIA,

furthermore, rejected as insufficient respondent's testimony that he and his father had

been threatened in Nigeria and that his father had received threatening letters in

Cameroon, because no details as to the nature or origin of the threats were provided

and no description of the letters' contents was offered. We detect similar failings in the

record in Mr. Mbonu's effort to prove that he had a well-founded fear of future

persecution if he returned to Nigeria more than thirty years after the end of the Biafran

War.

Mr. Mbonu makes much of the BIA's reliance on Matter of S-M-J, 21 I. & N.

Dec. 722 (BIA 1997), in rejecting his claim. In fact, in his brief he says that he was

seeking review "solely on the BIA's legal interpretation of [that case] as it pertains to

the facts of his case." Referring to Mr. Mbonu's testimony that the Nigerian army

dropped a bomb on his house that killed his mother, the BIA cited Matter of S-M-J in

support of its conclusion that "[w]e can not find the respondent's single statement to be

sufficient evidence to support a finding that the Nigerian army singled out the

respondent's family for persecution." 
-3-

We see no misapplication of S-M-J in this instance, even if an agency's

misapplication of its own precedent could by itself be a reason for reversing an agency's

adjudication. The BIA was simply saying that assuming Mr. Mbonu's testimony was

true, it was not enough to establish that he had been persecuted; the BIA was not

saying that the testimony was insufficient to establish the facts that it contained.

We have examined Mr. Mbonu's other arguments and have found them to be

meritless. We therefore affirm the order of the BIA.

A true copy.

Attest:

CLERK, U.S. COURT OF APPEALS, EIGHTH CIRCUIT.