20 Nigerians on death row in Indonesia are from one South East state – Dabiri-Erewa

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The Chairperson of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, has stated that it is unjust to hold an entire nation accountable for the actions of a few individuals.

In response to the ongoing ‘Nigeria must go’ demonstration in Ghana, Abike urged the authorities there to address wrongdoing on an individual basis rather than targeting all Nigerians collectively.

Her remarks followed the circulation of a viral video on Tuesday showing a significant number of Ghanaian citizens protesting with placards demanding the removal of Nigerians from their country.

She also referenced a past case in Indonesia where 21 Nigerians faced the death penalty, noting that 20 of them were from a single state in the South East region of Nigeria.

“If a few Nigerians have committed crimes on foreign soil, they should be punished and publicly held accountable.

However, it is unfair to generalise and attribute that crime to all Nigerians in the region,” she said on Arise News.

“You see, again we are generalizing. Don’t forget that I’ve called people out. We have names.

“I really love calling names, and I’ve said that these so-called Nigerians, let us know them and let them be dealt with. They can’t be anonymous.

“So it’s the responsibility of the host country, which even the Inspector General of Police of Ghana said. Look, I don’t want to say one tribe. Let us know about them. We are not going to go there and beg for them. The Nigeria embassy in Ghana has been doing a lot actually. “Look, I’ve gone to Ghana. I can’t remember how many times I’ve gone to Ghana. If you remember when we had cases of trafficking, we went to Ghana and brought back these girls.

“And we’ve been doing that on a regular basis, and it has gone down, and the people behind that have been arrested. Many Nigerians and a few Ghanaians were involved in the trafficking.

“It’s still going on, but not as much as in the past. So we dealt with it headlong. If you say kidnapping, arrest them and jail them. Lock them up.

“When I mention these things, sometimes this tribe you’re kind of talking about, we say, Oh, is it because it’s us?

“No, like I said, crime as a federal character. In Indonesia, we had 21 Nigerians on death row. We went to the Indonesia prison and we spoke to them, and we begged them, and they said, our laws will stand.

“Four were executed, and they are still there and then one was saved through the intervention of Barrister Emmanuel, but they are still there. But you know what?

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“When we went into that prison, I’ve said it before, and I said again, 21 of them, 20 were from one state in the southeast 20, the other one was one Edo state.

“But at the same time, that doesn’t mean you should generalize and say everybody in that state is a criminal, and the governor of that state has tackled the issue.

“However, there are some very good stories. And here’s the problem, it’s only the bad stories that trend. What about those thousands of Nigerians that are developing those countries? What about those thousands of Nigerians that if they leave some countries today, it will affect them, that those are the stories we celebrate.

“However, the media is only interested in bad news that trends and is traffic driven. If that, in Ghana, you had 10,000 people come out and say Nigerians are the best. Nobody would talk about it.

“So I think that’s just the way it is. Bad news travels fast.”

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, has appealed for calm over the matter, noting that there is “no cause for alarm.”

Earlier, the Nigerian High Commissioner to Ghana, Ambassador Demola, said the protest is not against all Nigerians but against some persons with undesirable activities in Ghana.

“I think the focus is on the tertiary traders and people whom I would describe as probably undesirable to their system, to their economy,” he said in an interview on Arise News.

Recall that in 1983, there was a mass deportation of Ghanaians from Nigeria under former President Shehu Shagari.

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