The Federal Government has said its Transfer of Sentenced Persons Agreement with Ethiopia, designed to facilitate the repatriation of convicted Nigerians serving prison terms in the East African country, is in line with President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda and citizen diplomacy policy.
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, made this known in a statement issued on Friday by her Special Assistant on Communication and New Media, Magnus Eze.
She described the agreement as a significant diplomatic achievement that underscores the Federal Government’s commitment to protecting the welfare of Nigerians abroad and providing support to citizens facing challenges in foreign countries.
Odumegwu-Ojukwu also dismissed as false a list circulating on social media claiming to contain the names and number of Nigerian inmates in Ethiopian prisons, insisting that Nigeria does not have 136 prisoners in the country.
The minister further rejected reports detailing alleged crimes committed by the inmates, describing many of the claims as unfounded. She stressed that the government’s objective is to enable the prisoners to complete their sentences in Nigeria under more humane conditions.
According to her, efforts to secure the transfer of the inmates had been ongoing for several years, hampered largely by difficulties in obtaining accurate data on Nigerians incarcerated in Ethiopia.
She explained that the prisoners are currently held in Kaliti and Aba Samuel prisons, both maximum-security facilities, making the transfer agreement a crucial step toward addressing their concerns.
“Essentially, if prisoners have been sentenced in one country and they are serving a jail term there, they can return to their country of origin to complete their sentence,” she said.
The minister noted that the inmates had repeatedly appealed to be transferred to Nigeria due to harsh living conditions, health concerns, limited medical care, poor feeding, restricted visitation rights, inadequate legal support and language barriers.
“This is important because the inmates in those prisons have been agitating for many years to return to Nigeria to complete their jail terms,” she added.
Odumegwu-Ojukwu revealed that four Nigerian inmates died while both countries were working to finalise the agreement.
“Some of these young people that I saw when I visited the prison could have been anybody’s brother. Should they continue to face such a precarious situation because of one mistake?” she asked.
The minister, however, dismissed suggestions that the inmates would be granted freedom upon their return to Nigeria. She also rejected claims that the prisoners were predominantly from a particular region of the country, stressing that criminality has no ethnic or regional identity.
She explained that one of the key provisions of the Memorandum of Understanding signed by both countries prohibits either side from granting pardon or amnesty to transferred prisoners without the consent of the sentencing country.
“The list trending online is fabricated. We do not have 136 inmates in Aba Samuel and Kaliti prisons. Those covered by this transfer agreement are 98 inmates,” she said.
“A number of them are from the South-East, while others are from the South-West and South-South. Crime has no ethnicity. These are Nigerian citizens serving sentences in a foreign country.”
The agreement is expected to pave the way for the transfer of the affected inmates to Nigeria, where they will continue serving their sentences under the supervision of Nigerian correctional authorities.
