Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, Nnena Ukeje, has disclosed that 800 Nigerians were serving various jail terms in Togo.
This is coming on the heels of revelations by Chairman, House Committee on Diaspora of hundreds of Nigerians in Brazilian prisons.
In a chat with Vanguard, weekend, Ukeje lamented lack of reliable data on Nigerians resident abroad.
Speaking on the large number of Nigerians serving jail terms in neighbouring Togo, she said: “This is the problem. As at two weeks ago, we got report of about 800 Nigerians in prisons in Togo, much more in China .
“The only one country that we have a clear-cut inventory is the United Kingdom , where we have a bill that will go to aid with prisoner-exchange.
“Of course, the National Assembly in the last session, discussed on how Nigerians in prisons in other countries can come back to Nigeria. Now, in the UK, we have a total figure of Nigerians who are in UK prisons.
“I know in Togo, it is about 800; in China, I read in the papers of the number being high. Those are the things that we are actually trying to look at and look at the status of these Nigerians who are currently resident in collection of institution around the world.”
Ukeje noted the need to establish Diaspora Desk in Nigeria’s foreign missions as well as inventory of Nigerians living abroad, recalling the uncoordinated response to the evacuation of stranded Nigerians in Libya in the wake of the Libyan crises.
According to her, “We are looking at a situation where our citizens are in front, right and centre in our foreign policy which is why in every embassy around the world, there is a Diaspora desk and we are looking at strengthening that desk so that it can engage fully with our citizens abroad.
“Furthermore in the outcome of the fallout of the Nigeria-Libya crisis, we found out that one of the problems we had as a country, was that we didn’t have a total inventory of the number of Nigerians that reside outside of this country.
“Now basically, what we are ensuring is that these missions have a total inventory of Nigeria so that we can track ourselves should need be arise on evacuation, etc of our citizens.”
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/04/800-nigerians-in-togolese-prisons/
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