LEDAP urges foreign missions to assist in prosecution of Nigerians

As the world marks the 13th World Day against the use of the Death Penalty, a human right group, Legal Defence and Assistance Project (LEDAP) has called on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ensure that consular services are provided to every Nigerian facing a criminal charge abroad.

The group also said that they should make exertion to recruit and train legal attachés in all its missions, especially in South-East Asia, to ensure that no Nigeria is on death row aboard.

In a statement signed by the group Executive Programmes Director, Adaobi Egboka, the group reminds government and Nigerian foreign missions of their legal obligations under the Vienna Convention on the Consular Rights Services, to provide consular support to its citizens that are in conflict with the law abroad.

She further stated that “LEDAP is concerned that many Nigerians are trapped in the deceptive organized drug world as innocent traffickers, and in South East Asia and China, they are faced with the gallows. Data collected independently by LEDAP showed that nearly 120 Nigerians are facing the death penalty in Chinese prisons, and over 170 in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam. There are five in Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia. 33 countries and territories retain the death penalty for drug crimes and it is estimated conservatively that over 16,500 Nigerians are in prisons abroad and nearly 350 of them are facing the death penalty.”

The group noted that most of the Nigerians convicted abroad did not receive fair trials because most of them did not have lawyers to defend them, the trials are held in languages they do not understand, in many cases no interpreters are provided and more importantly, consular support services are lacking.

They therefore charge Nigeria government to make concerted effort to abolish the death penalty in Nigeria and be responsive to the plight of its citizen’s aboard.