President Bola Tinubu has sent a high-level mission to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to ensure the quick repatriation of almost 300 Nigerian nationals serving prison sentences in the country.
According to sources in the Presidency and the diplomatic service familiar with the directive, the convicts are being detained in deteriorating conditions at Kaliti, a maximum-security prison in Addis Ababa.
Tinubu directed the delegation, which included the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, and the Attorney-General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ethiopian government, allowing the prisoners to be transferred to Nigeria to serve the remainder of their sentences in Nigerian correctional facilities.
According to one source, the command came straight from the president, and the delegation left for Addis Ababa on Tuesday.
“We are leaving because we have prisoners. The president has directed us to get these prisoners back.
“He directed that we go there right away with the attorney general and get an MOU quickly signed so that these prisoners can be transported back to Nigeria so that they can serve out the rest of their sentences here,” the official revealed.
Another source revealed that the urgency was driven by the deteriorating physical condition of the inmates.
“They are dying. We have almost 300 prisoners in the open-air prisons in Ethiopia,” the official told our correspondent.
The directive is Tinubu’s first direct engagement in the conflict, which has dragged on via multiple diplomatic channels for more than three years.
According to official Ministry of Foreign Affairs estimates, around 270 Nigerians are now serving jail sentences in Ethiopia, primarily for drug-related offenses.
The majority are jailed at Addis Abeba’s Kaliti Prison, where advocacy groups have complained about overcrowding, malnutrition, a lack of medical attention, and physical punishment since 2019.
Chizoba Favour Eze, a Nigerian inmate in Kaliti Prison, died on March 12, 2023, after allegedly being brutalized by prison staff.
Another Nigerian, Uchenna Nwanneneme, died of tuberculosis on September 21, 2023, reportedly after receiving little or no medical care.
A third Nigerian, Basil Lawrence Ilobi, died in detention.
Their deaths sparked protests from Nigeria’s mission in Addis Ababa, as well as renewed calls from detained relatives for the federal government to formalize a prisoner transfer arrangement.
In November 2024, Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court in Abuja directed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission to facilitate the return of the imprisoned Nigerians, citing the Ethiopian government’s admission that it lacked the funds to care for foreign inmates. However, the directive resulted in no immediate action.
On April 17, 2025, Bianca Ojukwu, then Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, led a delegation to meet with Ethiopia’s Ambassador to Nigeria, Legesse Geremew Haile, and pressed for the MOU’s speedy ratification.
“Our people don’t want to hear that another Nigerian inmate died in an Ethiopian prison,” she declared during the meeting.
According to Ojukwu, Nigeria had already completed its own side of the MoU formalities.
She said, “The ministry has fulfilled its own side of the formalities for the transfer of sentenced persons MoU. It is the Ethiopian side that is stalling.”
Haile reaffirmed diplomatic ties while acknowledging that the Memorandum of Understanding was still awaiting confirmation by Ethiopia’s House of Representatives.
In September 2025, relatives of convicts at Kaliti Prison petitioned Tinubu, the Senate, and NiDCOM to intercede and trigger the prisoner transfer deal.
In January 2026, the Ethiopian House of People’s Representatives approved prisoner transfer agreements with China and Brazil, as well as a criminal extradition deal with South Africa.
In 2019, Ethiopia granted amnesty to Nigerian convicts. However, numerous people returned to the nation and were detained again for similar drug-related offenses.
Since the 1980s, the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime has supported model agreements for the international transfer of condemned persons, pushing governments to allow inmates to serve their sentences in their home countries as a means of rehabilitation.
According to advocacy groups, many of the Nigerians detained in Kaliti are transiting via Addis Ababa’s Bole International Airport, one of Africa’s biggest aviation hubs, and were arrested on drug allegations.
They claim that some were unknowing bearers of drugs reportedly hidden in their bags.
