Nigerian maltreatment in China: Reps to scrutinize Chinese national’s immigration status

The Chinese nationals in Nigeria will henceforth be subjected to probe as the House of Representatives on Tuesday said immigration documents of every Chinese should be scrutinized, with a view to sending those with incomplete papers back to their country.

Three of its committees— Interior, Foreign Affairs and Diaspora — are to carry out the assignment in conjunction with the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring and Commerce, the Nigeria Immigration Service , the Corporate Affairs Commission and the Nigerian Content and Development Monitoring Board.

The committees are also to check the expatriate quota of all Chinese companies in Nigeria to ascertain their compliance with expatriate quota guidelines.

The House also asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other agencies to speed up the evacuation of stranded Nigerians in China.

Besides, the members urged the Ministry of Justice, as well as relevant ministries and agencies of the government to provide necessary financial and other forms of assistance to any Nigerian victim of maltreatment in China, who wishes to seek redress in any local or international court .

The resolutions followed a motion by Benjamin Kalu and nine others titled: “Maltreatment and Institutional Acts of Racial Discrimination against Nigerians Living in China by the Government of China.”

The House condemned the maltreatment, discrimination and xenophobic attacks against Nigerians and other foreign nationals in China.

It urged “the ministry of foreign affairs and other relevant ministries, departments and agencies to, as a matter of urgency, ensure that all Nigerians who wish to return home, including Nigerians that only visited for business, Nigerians with any form of travel document and identification, Nigerians with passports but expired visas, and Nigerians with passports and valid visas who have been ejected by house owners, Nigerians who have tested negative to COVID-19, are evacuated from China and quarantined upon arrival.”

It said the “committees on Inter-Parliamentary Relations, Foreign Affairs, Human Rights and Diaspora should ascertain the extent of violation of rights of Nigerians in China as well as losses arising from such maltreatments and to further engage the Chinese Parliament appropriately to register Nigeria’s National Assembly condemnation of the maltreatment, discrimination and xenophobic attacks against Nigerians in China and to ensure the cessation of such actions by its people and government and that treatments meted to Nigerians are compatible with China’s human rights obligations, and to report back within two (2) weeks for further legislative action.”

The House sought “the concurrence of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

It also called on “the Federal Government to ensure the provision of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), regular release of overhead costs and special intervention funds for all federal tertiary hospitals in Nigeria.”