About 300 out of the more than 400 Nigerians incarcerated in Chinese prisons are being held for drug-related offences. Nigeria's envoy to China, Ambassador Aminu Bashir Wali, disclosed this to journalists in Beijing, ahead of President Goodluck Jonathan state visit to the country Tuesday.
According to him, in many cases, the identity of those jailed only become manifest after they must have been sentenced, as initially they may have entered the country with false identity showing that they are either 'Ghanaians' or 'Malawians'.
"They only get busted after the envoys of such countries are invited to check them out. Once they have been discovered as being Nigerians, the lot now fall on the Nigerian embassy to begin to seek ways of assisting them," Wali explained.
The envoy, who expressed concern about the situation, which he alleged was not peculiar to Nigerian migrants to China alone, observed that the magnitude of the problem was beyond Nigerian embassies alone, but a national issue.
While calling for reorientation and the assistance of security agents back home in educating young Nigerians in laws obtainable in other lands including the consequences of sojourning to foreign lands without concrete things to do there, Wali urged the government to establish a mechanism to hinder them from leaving the country by providing essential infrastructures including power.
Wali said: "We have challenges obviously. These are not limited to China. Wherever you go in the world today by the sheer size of Nigeria we would always have our own fair share of good people and bad people like any other country. Nigeria is not an exception.
"We have consular problems in terms of our nationals being involve in crimes and offences that do not give us a good image."
The envoy also pointed out that: "We certainly have big issue with drug-related crimes committed by Nigerians in China and when you look at the whole of Africa 80 per cent of all the offences and crimes committed by Africans in China about 80 per cent is committed by Nigerians.
"Right now, we have over 400 Nigerians in various jails in China and 80 per cent of them are drug-related offences so you can see what we have. We do not have any provisions. We in the embassies can't be able to come to the aid of Nigerians with difficulties, not just prisons, any Nigerian."
No comments:
Post a Comment