The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, has clarified the Federal Government’s prisoner transfer agreement with Ethiopia, describing it as a humanitarian initiative designed to allow incarcerated Nigerians to complete their sentences at home under the citizen diplomacy framework of President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.
In a statement issued on Friday by her Special Assistant on Communication and New Media, Dr. Magnus Eze, the minister said the agreement marked an important diplomatic milestone aimed at protecting the welfare of Nigerians facing difficult circumstances abroad.
Odumegwu-Ojukwu also dismissed a viral list circulating on social media claiming that 136 Nigerians were being held in Ethiopian prisons, describing the document as false and misleading.
According to her, the actual number of inmates covered by the transfer agreement is 98, not 136 as widely reported.
“The list trending online is a made-up list. We don’t have 136 inmates in Aba Samuel and Kaliti prisons.
Those that are subject to this agreement, the transfer of sentenced persons, are 98 inmates of that prison,” she said.
The minister explained that the agreement allows convicted persons serving prison terms in a foreign country to be transferred to their home country to complete their sentences, in line with international legal frameworks governing prisoner transfers.
She noted that Nigerian inmates in Ethiopia, particularly those held at Kaliti and Aba Samuel maximum-security prisons, had for years appealed to be returned home due to challenging living conditions.
“These inmates have been agitating for so many years to return back to Nigeria to complete their jail terms,” she said.
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Odumegwu-Ojukwu cited concerns including poor feeding, inadequate healthcare, denial of visitation rights, limited access to legal services, language barriers and other hardships faced by the prisoners.
She revealed that four Nigerian inmates died while efforts to finalise the agreement between both countries were ongoing.
“Some of these young people that I saw when I went into that prison could have been anybody’s brother. So, should they be faced with such a precarious situation for one mistake?” she asked.
The minister stressed that the transfer arrangement does not amount to a pardon, amnesty or release for any inmate upon arrival in Nigeria.
She explained that one of the key provisions of the Memorandum of Understanding signed by both countries prohibits either party from granting pardon or amnesty to transferred prisoners without the consent of the sentencing country.
Odumegwu-Ojukwu also rejected attempts to ethnicise the issue, noting that the inmates come from different parts of Nigeria.
“A lot of them are from the South-East. There are also those from the South-West and South-South. Crime has no ethnicity. All these people are Nigerian citizens in a foreign jail,” she stated.
The minister said the Federal Government remains committed to ensuring that affected Nigerians serve their sentences under more humane conditions while maintaining respect for the judicial decisions of the sentencing country.