imprisoned in various prisons overseas, with the
largest number of 752 in the United Kingdom,
Abdulazeez Dankano, the Director, Consular and
Immigration Services, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has
confirmed.
Dankano said many of the prisoners were in the
Asian-pacific region for drug-trafficking related
offences.
The revised figure is 6,000 more than the earlier
figure published by the ministry in June this year.
"This figure cannot be exact because some countries'
laws do not allow them to reveal such information.
Sometimes our missions go through serious
challenges to get the information,'' he said.
Dankano explained that Nigeria and Thailand were
currently implementing a Prisoner Transfer
Agreement (PTA), which has seen the repatriation of
about 400 Nigerian prisoners since 2008. He stated
that the PTA allows the return of a prisoner to serve
out his sentence in his home country where both
jurisdictions are in agreement.
Dankano listed the UK, Hong Kong and India as other
countries with which Nigeria had concluded bilateral
PTA but have yet to sign the agreements. "The three
agreements are ready for signing and at a convenient
time for the countries, they will be signed,'' he said.
Dankano said the agreement with India was
concluded last month following the visit of a high-
level Nigerian delegation to New Delhi to negotiate
some outstanding agreements with the country.
On UK, Dankano said that Nigeria had an existing PTA
under the Commonwealth scheme that had
facilitated the repatriation of only one prisoner.
"Under that (commonwealth) agreement, the
prisoner has to consent before repatriation as that is
the practice in international human rights. The
commonwealth scheme is still open and convicted
prisoners can opt to come back through that scheme
or through the bilateral PTA that will soon be
signed,'' he said.
He said that about 300 Nigerians in UK prisons are
qualified for repatriation under the bilateral PTA, and
that the UK government would defray the cost of
bringing them home. Dankano said that 22 Nigerian
prisoners in Hong Kong had indicated their
willingness to return home to complete their terms.
"I went to Hong Kong recently and met with each of
the prisoners and they indicated their interest to
come back home and complete their prisons terms.
"Hong Kong is a special administrative region under
China, so we had to seek the Chinese government
approval before going into the negotiations. We got
the approval, did the negotiations and in the New
Year we will find a convenient time to sign the
agreement and bring back the 22 Nigerians.''
He noted that under the transfer agreement "the
consent of the convicted persons is required before
repatriation, in addition to the consent of the
authorities in both states''.
The ministry official said that there are 665 Nigerian
prisoners in various prisons in India and the ministry
was yet to determine how many of them are qualified
for transfer to Nigerian prisons.
He explained that Nigerians serving capital
punishments cannot be transferred home even if
they consent to return home. Dankano told NAN that
repatriating prisoners back home was usually a hard
bargain for the country as most airlines are cautious
of transporting them.
"We have not recorded any incident yet and the
Nigerian government does not pay for any prisoner to
be transported home. We can only facilitate their
return and when they come, government will
shoulder the responsibility of maintaining them until
they end their term; that is what is in the
agreement,'' he said.
Sent From David Aniemeka
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