The Chairman House Committee on
Diaspora, Hon Abike Dabiri Erewa, has said that 409 Nigerians are
currently serving different jail terms in South African prisons and most of them have completed thier prison terms but
still kept in jail.
Dabiri Erewa said the committee discovered the situation during its
visit to two prisons where Nigerians were being held for various
offences.
She was accompanied on the visit by Hon. Ajibola Famurewa and Hon. Umaru
Shidanfi both members of the committee, consular officers of the
Nigerian Embassy and executives of the Nigerian Union in South Africa.
She explained that the committee interacted with some inmates and
gathered that some of them have completed their prison terms, but were
still kept in Jail.
Dabiri-Erewa said the inmates complained of extreme discrimination by
the prison authorities in the former apartheid enclave, saying that as
Nigerians, they got “very bad deal.”
