Chairperson of the Nigerians in the Diaspora Commission, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, has lamented that it’s unfair to generalise crime being committed by a few Nigerians to the whole of the country. Abike, who was responding to questions on the ‘Nigeria must go’ protest going on in Ghana, called on Ghanaians to punish individual offenders found wanting instead of witch-hunting all Nigerians.
Recall in the last month, there have been protests across Ghana demanding Nigerians must go, meaning Nigerians should be deported from Ghana by the authority.
Abike recalled an incident in Indonesia where 21 Nigerians were sentenced to death row, and unfortunately 20 among them were from one state in the Southeast.
“If a few Nigerians have committed crimes on foreign soil, they should be punished and publicly held accountable.
However, she frowned at the generalising of the crime against all Nigerians in the region ”while speaking on Arise News.
“You see, again we are generalising. Don’t forget that I’ve called people out. We have names.
“I really love calling names, and I’ve said that these so-called Nigerians, let us know them, and let them be dealt with. They can’t be anonymous.
“So it’s the responsibility of the host country, which even the Inspector General of Police of Ghana said. Look, I don’t want to say one tribe. Let us know about them. We are not going to go there and beg for them. The Nigerian embassy in Ghana has been doing a lot actually. “Look, I’ve gone to Ghana. I can’t remember how many times I’ve gone to Ghana. If you remember when we had cases of trafficking, we went to Ghana and brought back these girls.
“And we’ve been doing that on a regular basis, and it has gone down, and the people behind that have been arrested. Many Nigerians and a few Ghanaians were involved in the trafficking.
“It’s still going on, but not as much as in the past. So we dealt with it headlong. If you say kidnapping, arrest them and jail them. Lock them up.
“When I mention these things, sometimes this tribe you’re kind of talking about, we say, Oh, is it because it’s us?
“No, like I said, crime as a federal character. In Indonesia, we had 21 Nigerians on death row. We went to the Indonesian prison, and we spoke to them, and we begged them, and they said, Our laws will stand.
“Four were executed, and they are still there, and then one was saved through the intervention of Barrister Emmanuel, but they are still there. But you know what?
“When we went into that prison—I’ve said it before, and I say it again, 21 of them, 20 were from one state in the southeast 20, the other one was from Edo State.
“But at the same time, that doesn’t mean you should generalise and say everybody in that state is a criminal, and the governor of that state has tackled the issue.
“However, there are some very good stories. And here’s the problem: it’s only the bad stories that trend. What about those thousands of Nigerians that are developing those countries? What about those thousands of Nigerians that, if they leave some countries today, it will affect them? Those are the stories we celebrate.
“However, the media is only interested in bad news that trends and is traffic driven. If that, in Ghana, you had 10,000 people come out and say Nigerians are the best. Nobody would talk about it.
“So I think that’s just the way it is. Bad news travels fast.”
Meanwhile, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, has appealed for calm over the matter, noting that there is “no cause for alarm.”
Earlier, the Nigerian High Commissioner to Ghana, Ambassador Demola, said the protest is not against all Nigerians but against some persons with undesirable activities in Ghana.
History is about to repeat itself, but this time, in a reverse manner; recall in 1983, under former President Shehu Shagari, there was a mass deportation of Ghanaians from Nigeria.