Arrangements are on ground for Nigeria and India are to sign Prisoners
Transfer Agreement to allow prisoners of the two countries to return to
their home countries to serve their jail terms.
The Indian High Commissioner, Amb. Ajjampur Ghanashyam, who said this
while featuring on the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum on Sunday in
Abuja, said no fewer than 1,100 Nigerians were serving various prison
terms in India.
“When I came to Nigeria, there were about 1,800 Nigerians in our prisons
and that was shocking for me and now I am told it is about 1,100.
“We are waiting for an agreement to be signed between India and Nigeria
on transfer of sentenced persons.
“They need to be brought back and they can also be taken back to India
before commencing their jail terms so that they can serve their sentences
here.
“At this is at the moment, pending with the Nigerian government. I hope
that we will be able to sign it”, he said.
The Indian envoy also said some Indians had been arrested as pirates,
adding that the High Commission was engaging the Nigerian authorities to
ensure that the innocent ones among them released.
“We still have some problems with piracy. There are ships operators who
hire Indians to run the ships.
“The boys are not aware of that the ships are used for bunkering; they
are paid to do a job on the ship.
“So they picked up the job and then land on the ship only for the Navy to
come and pick them up and take them to jail.
“You must arrest the owner of the ship, maybe you should arrest the
Captain of the ship but not these boys who have no knowledge of what the
ship was doing,” he told NAN.
Ghanashyam said Indians living in Nigeria were quite happy adding: “I
have not come across Indian who complains but occasionally there are some
pockets of kidnappings”.
“But ultimately we have not seen any loss of lives to kidnapping and I
believe the situation was much worse before.
“This is because I think the infrastructure of law enforcements in the
country is now far better than what it was in the past in Nigeria,” he
said. (NAN)