Rotimi Adebari (born 1964 in Okeodan, Ogun State) is a Nigerian-born Irish politician. He was elected as the first black mayor in Ireland. A convert from Islam to Christianity, he fled Nigeria in 2000, and made a claim for asylum on the grounds of religious persecution. His application was rejected because of a lack of evidence that he had personally suffered persecution, but he gained residency because his third child, another boy, was born in Ireland. Against claims that he was a train operator working out of the Queens Park depot on the Bakerloo tube line, Adebari says he travelled to Ireland directly from Nigeria, via Paris, and never worked or lived in London at any time.