FG to repatriate 100 Nigerians from Ethiopian prisons

The Federal Government has announced a landmark agreement that will allow nearly 100 convicted Nigerians to return home and complete their jail terms in Nigeria. The development followed the signing of a Transfer of Sentenced Persons Agreement between the governments of Nigeria and Ethiopia. Delivering President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s message during a visit to inmates […]

The Federal Government has announced a landmark agreement that will allow nearly 100 convicted Nigerians to return home and complete their jail terms in Nigeria.

The development followed the signing of a Transfer of Sentenced Persons Agreement between the governments of Nigeria and Ethiopia.

Delivering President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s message during a visit to inmates at Aba Samuel Prison in Addis Ababa, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, assured the prisoners that Nigeria had not abandoned them despite their circumstances.

“Your country has not forsaken you,” she told the inmates, conveying President Tinubu’s commitment to citizen welfare under the administration’s foreign policy agenda.

The agreement, signed on June 10, 2026, by Nigeria’s Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), and Ethiopia’s Minister of Justice, Hanna Arayaselassie, provides a legal framework for Nigerian inmates serving sentences in Ethiopia to be transferred to Nigeria.

According to Ethiopian authorities, about 98 Nigerian prisoners, made up of 96 men and two women, are expected to benefit from the arrangement, provided they consent to the transfer and have at least one year of their sentence remaining.

Speaking to the inmates after separate meetings with officials of the Ethiopian Federal Prisons Commission and the Ministry of Justice, Odumegwu-Ojukwu explained that the agreement was inspired by the citizen diplomacy component of Nigeria’s 4-D Foreign Policy Framework—Diplomacy, Democracy, Development and Demography—under the Renewed Hope Agenda.