Michael Olugbode in Abuja
The federal government has defended its recent agreement with Ethiopia on the transfer of sentenced persons, saying the deal is aimed at allowing Nigerian inmates serving jail terms in the East African country to complete their sentences at home under more humane conditions.
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, said the agreement aligned with President Bola Tinubu’s citizen diplomacy policy, which placed the welfare of Nigerians abroad at the centre of the administration’s foreign policy.
Odumegwu-Ojukwu also dismissed as false a list circulating on social media claiming that 136 Nigerians were imprisoned in Ethiopia, describing both the figures and the crimes attributed to the inmates as fabricated.
According to her, only 98 Nigerian prisoners in Ethiopia’s maximum-security prisons were covered by the transfer arrangement.
The minister explained that negotiations for the agreement had spanned several years due to difficulties in establishing the actual number of Nigerian inmates held in Ethiopia’s prison facilities, particularly the maximum-security prisons at Kaliti and Aba Samuel.
She said many of the prisoners had repeatedly appealed to the Nigerian government to facilitate their return home because of harsh living conditions, inadequate healthcare, poor feeding, limited access to legal services, language barrier, and the absence of family visitation rights.
The minister disclosed that four Nigerian inmates died while the two countries were finalising the agreement, underscoring the urgency of the intervention.
She described many of the prisoners as young and vulnerable Nigerians who had fallen victim to criminal syndicates and made regrettable choices, insisting that they still deserve humane treatment despite their offences.
Addressing concerns that the transferred inmates could be released upon their return to Nigeria, the minister clarified that the memorandum of understanding expressly prohibited the granting of pardon or amnesty without the consent of Ethiopia, the sentencing state.
She also rejected attempts to portray the inmates as belonging predominantly to one ethnic group, stressing that criminality should not be ethicised.
Odumegwu-Ojukwu stated, “A lot of them are from the South-east. There are also those from the South-west and South-south. At the end of the day, crime has no ethnicity. All these people are Nigerian citizens in a foreign jail.”
