A NIGERIAN democracy campaigner, who is appealing against a Home Office deportation order, yesterday claimed he would be executed if he was forced to return home with his wife and two children.

Mr Akin Adegboye, who was released on bail last Friday after spending 142 days in Edinburgh's Saughton Prison, told an asylum hearing in Glasgow that his work as a ``covert information runner'' had led to him fleeing from Nigeria to Britain. He admitted adopting devious means to try to remain here.

The hearing, before Mr Mungo Deans, a special adjudicator with the Immigration Appellate authority, heard how members of Mr Adegboye's family, including his wife and father, had been beaten by state security officers.

Mr Adegboye, 36, claimed his father, a businessman, died from his wounds three weeks after the beating. He said his wife, Teju, also suffered beatings and sexual harassment which included being forced to undress in public.

The hearing was told how Mr Adegboye, who has two daughters aged four and one, had become interested in politics at Nigeria's Ijabuodu University between 1984 and 1988 where he attained a Bachelor of Education degree.

He began passing information between disenchanted military officers sympathetic to the democracy movement and journalists.

Mr Adegboye left Nigeria in 1989 and came to Britain after a military contact, Colonel Tony Nyiam, told him he was on a list ordering his arrest dead or alive.

Following a coup attempt in 1990, Mr Adegboye said he did not apply for political asylum because Nigerian leaders had announced a programme for democratic elections.

``I was still hoping to go back home,'' he said. However, he later carried out a series of deceptions which led to his detention on Home Office orders on July 27 after finishing a sentence for claiming income support using a false passport. He had pled guilty but insisted he needed a false identity because Nigerian government officials were trying to find him and his family.

Their pursuit led him to flee from London to Edinburgh. He and his family now live in Wester Hailes where many community members have vowed to mount a massive campaign if the deportation goes against the family.

Mr Adegboye yesterday also admitted entering into a bigamous marriage of convenience, which he said he had no intention of fulfilling, to try to protect his right to stay in Britain where he had been joined by his wife.

Mr Paul Seils, the Scottish Refugee Council solicitor representing Mr Adegboye, yesterday produced documentary evidence that Nigerian High Commission staff had made contact with his client in this country.

Asked by Mr Seils what would happen if he returned to Nigeria, Mr Adegboye said: ``I would get killed. I have no doubt.''

When asked who would order his death, he said: ``The president of the military government, General Abacha.''

Mr Adegboye claimed political asylum last year after being advised by Colonel Nyiam. The colonel, who now has residence in Scotland after marrying a Scot, is expected to give evidence to the hearing today. Mr Deans ruled that Mr Adegboye's bail should be continued until January 11 when a determination on the case would be announced.