The Federal Government has defended its decision to sign a Transfer of Sentenced Persons Agreement with Ethiopia, saying the arrangement is aimed at protecting the welfare of Nigerians imprisoned abroad and is in line with President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, said the agreement would allow Nigerians serving prison terms in Ethiopia to return home and complete their sentences in Nigeria under conditions that respect their dignity and human rights.
In a statement issued on Friday by the Special Assistant on Communication and New Media in the Office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Magnus Eze, the minister described the agreement as a major diplomatic achievement rooted in the government’s citizen diplomacy policy.
According to her, the initiative demonstrates the Tinubu administration’s commitment to protecting Nigerians wherever they may be and ensuring that citizens facing difficulties abroad are not abandoned.
Odumegwu-Ojukwu also dismissed reports circulating on social media claiming that 136 Nigerians were being held in Ethiopian prisons and that many of them were convicted of offences listed in the reports.
She described the list as false and misleading.
“The list trending online is a made-up list. We don’t have 136 inmates in Aba Samuel and Kaliti prisons,” she said.
“Those that are the subject of this agreement on the transfer of sentenced persons are 98 inmates in those prisons.”
The minister stressed that the agreement does not amount to granting freedom to convicted persons or excusing criminal behaviour.
Instead, she said it provides a legal framework through which prisoners sentenced in one country can serve the remainder of their terms in their country of origin.
“Essentially, if prisoners have been sentenced in one country and they are serving a jail term in that country, they can return to their state or country of origin to serve out the sentence,” she explained.
According to her, many of the Nigerian inmates in Ethiopia have spent years appealing to the Nigerian government to facilitate their transfer home due to the harsh conditions they face.
She said the prisoners are being held at Kaliti and Aba Samuel prisons, both maximum-security facilities in Ethiopia.
The minister painted a troubling picture of the challenges confronting the inmates.
She listed poor feeding, health complications, inadequate medical care, denial of visitation rights, limited access to legal services and language barriers among the difficulties they face daily.
“This is important because the inmates in those prisons have been agitating for so many years to return to Nigeria to complete their jail terms,” she said.
“This is in view of their precarious living conditions, health challenges, inadequate medical facilities, poor feeding, denial of visitation rights, inadequate legal services and language barriers, among other things.”
Odumegwu-Ojukwu disclosed that the process of reaching the agreement with Ethiopia took several years due to difficulties in obtaining accurate information about the actual number of Nigerians in Ethiopian custody.
She noted that four Nigerian inmates died while both countries were working to finalise the arrangement.
The minister said the deaths underscored the urgency of concluding the agreement and addressing the plight of those still in prison.
“Some of these young people that I saw when I went into that prison could have been anybody’s brother,” she said.
“So, should they be faced with such a precarious situation for one mistake?”
Responding to concerns that the transferred inmates could be released upon arrival in Nigeria, the minister said safeguards had been built into the agreement to prevent such an outcome.
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 approval of the country where the conviction was secured.
According to her, the inmates would continue to serve the sentences handed down by Ethiopian courts, but within Nigerian correctional facilities.
She also rejected attempts to portray the issue through an ethnic lens.
The minister acknowledged that many of the affected inmates are from the South-East but said others come from the South-West and South-South regions.
She warned against attaching ethnic labels to criminal activities.
“A lot of them are from the South-East. There are also those from the South-West and the South-South,” she said.
“Crime has no ethnicity. All these people are Nigerian citizens in a foreign jail.”
The Transfer of Sentenced Persons Agreement is a legal arrangement that exists between several countries around the world. It allows convicted persons to be transferred to their home countries to serve the remainder of their prison terms, often for humanitarian reasons and to support rehabilitation.
For Nigeria, the agreement with Ethiopia represents another step in the government’s efforts to deepen citizen-focused diplomacy and respond to the concerns of Nigerians living abroad.
The Federal Government has repeatedly stated that the welfare of Nigerians overseas remains a priority under President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.
While the crimes committed by the inmates are not being excused, officials insist that they deserve humane treatment and the opportunity to complete their sentences closer to their families.
As discussions continue around the transfer arrangement, the government has urged Nigerians to disregard fake reports and rely only on verified information from official sources.
For the families of the affected inmates, the agreement offers hope that their loved ones may soon return home to complete their jail terms under conditions that are more familiar, accessible and humane.
At the same time, the Federal Government maintains that the arrangement does not weaken the fight against crime but rather reflects Nigeria’s commitment to protecting the rights and dignity of its citizens, wherever they may be.