The Senate has launched an investigation into the alleged killings and detention of over 250 Nigerians in Ethiopia.
This followed a motion presented by the Minority Leader, Senator Simon Mwadkwon (PDP Plateau North), and Senator Victor Umeh (YPP Anambra Central) headlined “Urgent need to investigate the unlawful killings and incarceration of over 250 Nigerians in Ethiopia.”
Mwadkwon, who introduced the motion, asked the Senate to instruct the Committees on Diaspora and Foreign Affairs to engage with the Federal Government to quickly form a committee to visit the Republic of Ethiopia to investigate what is happening to Nigerians there.
He also urged the Federal Government to promptly ask the Ethiopian Embassy to work with a team from the Senate Committees on Diaspora and Foreign Affairs to find a long-term solution to the challenges that Nigerians detained in Ethiopia are facing.
“The video clip being circulated in the social media indicates that Nigerians are held captives in the maximum prison of Ethiopia and are in serious peril, which calls for an urgent intervention and thorough probe,” Mwadkwon stated.
He bemoaned the fact that this was happening despite the world’s nations’ loud appeal for togetherness.
According to the Senate Leader:
“There is widespread information currently being circulated by Dr. Paul Ezike calling on the Nigerian Government to intervene on the inhumanity and torture that Nigerians are receiving in Ethiopia without evidence of the commission of any crime.
“Based on the widespread information being circulated, over 250 Nigerians who have continued to face this maltreatment and inhumanity have not committed any crime known to any law and there is no evidence of any court proceedings stating the categories of crimes they have committed or any court conviction in that regard.
“It is pathetic that a nation as populous as Nigeria, the giant of Africa, our citizens are being held in captivity in the 21st century where the call is for unity among nation-states but quite lugubriously that Ethiopia has chosen shallow path to maltreat and mistreat the citizens of Nigeria without any justification as shown in a video by Dr. Paul Ezike.”
cc: Punch Ng
