President Bola Tinubu has dispatched a high-level delegation to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to secure the immediate repatriation of nearly 300 Nigerian nationals serving prison sentences in the country, The PUNCH learnt.

Sources within the Presidency and the foreign service familiar with the directive said the prisoners are held in deteriorating conditions at Kaliti, a maximum-security prison in Addis Ababa.

Tinubu mandated the delegation, which includes the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, and the Attorney-General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ethiopian government that would allow the prisoners to be transferred to Nigeria to complete the remainder of their sentences in Nigerian correctional facilities.

According to one source, the directive came directly from the President, with the delegation departing for Addis Ababa on Tuesday.

“We are leaving because we have prisoners. The President has directed us to get these prisoners back.

“He directed that we go there right away with the Attorney-General, get an MOU quickly signed, so that these prisoners can be transported back to Nigeria, so that they can serve out the rest of their sentences here,” the official revealed.

A second source told The PUNCH that the urgency was driven by the deteriorating physical condition of the inmates.

“They are dying. We have almost 300 prisoners in the open-air prisons in Ethiopia,” the official told our correspondent.

The directive marks the first direct intervention of President Bola Tinubu on the crisis, which has dragged on through several diplomatic channels for over three years.

According to official Ministry of Foreign Affairs figures, more than 270 Nigerians are currently serving prison sentences in Ethiopia, largely for drug-related offences.

Most are held at Kaliti Prison in Addis Ababa, where, since 2019, advocacy groups have alleged overcrowding, starvation, lack of medical care and physical punishment.

On March 12, 2023, Chizoba Favour Eze, a Nigerian inmate at Kaliti Prison, died following alleged brutalisation by prison officials.

Another Nigerian, Uchenna Nwanneneme, died from tuberculosis on September 21, 2023, reportedly after receiving little or no medical attention.

A third Nigerian, Basil Lawrence Ilobi, also died in custody.

Their deaths drew protests from Nigeria’s mission in Addis Ababa and renewed calls from families of the incarcerated for the Federal Government to formalise a prisoner transfer arrangement.

In November 2024, Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court in Abuja ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission to facilitate the return of the imprisoned Nigerians, noting that the Ethiopian government had admitted it lacked the budget to care for foreign inmates. However, the order yielded no immediate action.

On April 17, 2025, Ojukwu, then serving as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, led a delegation to meet Ethiopia’s Ambassador to Nigeria, Legesse Geremew Haile, pressing for the immediate ratification of the MOU.

“Our people don’t want to hear that another Nigerian inmate died in an Ethiopian prison,” she declared during the meeting.

According to her, Nigeria had already completed its own side of the MOU formalities.

She said, “The ministry has fulfilled its own side of the formalities for the Transfer of Sentenced Persons MOU. It is the Ethiopian side that is stalling.”

Haile reaffirmed diplomatic ties but acknowledged that the MOU was still awaiting ratification by Ethiopia’s House of Representatives.

In September 2025, families of inmates at Kaliti Prison appealed directly to President Tinubu, the Senate and NiDCOM to intervene and activate the prisoner transfer arrangement.

In January 2026, the Ethiopian House of People’s Representatives ratified prisoner transfer agreements with China, Brazil and a criminal extradition agreement with South Africa.

In 2019, Ethiopia granted amnesty to Nigerian prisoners. However, several persons subsequently returned to the country and were re-arrested for similar drug-related offences.

Since the 1980s, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has promoted model agreements for the international transfer of sentenced persons, encouraging countries to allow prisoners to serve sentences in their home countries to aid rehabilitation.

Advocacy groups say many Nigerians held at Kaliti are reportedly travellers transiting through Addis Ababa’s Bole International Airport, one of Africa’s busiest aviation hubs, who were arrested on drug charges.

They argue that some were unwitting carriers of narcotics allegedly planted in their luggage. (PUNCH)

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