The Chinese government has denied the reports making rounds that it has opened and operates police stations in Nigeria and two other African countries where its nationals reside.
However, in a telephone interview with AIT, the Chinese Embassy through it’s press officer, Zhang Hang refuted the report, saying that the rumour is based on an ill-intentioned report, made by an anti- China Human Right NGO in Europe .
He stressed that diplomatic relations does not allow any government to open police posts in another sovereign country outside its borders and as such there is no such station in Nigeria or anywhere.
What they have is only a category of outreach service to Chinese communities where Chinese residents live to assist and protect them from terrorism, abduction, and other crimes that could risk their lives, stressing that China does not have any intention or spare energy to run police stations outside its shores.
It was alleged in an earlier report of an investigative statement titled, ‘110 Overseas Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild’, it was reported that the police stations are created to bring down all kinds of illegal and criminal activities involving overseas Chinese.
According to the reports, apart from Nigeria, two other African countries, Lesotho and Tanzania also have the Chinese police stations.
It further reported that as part of a massive nationwide campaign to combat fraud and telecommunication fraud by Chinese citizens living abroad, Chinese authorities claimed that from April 2021 to July 2022, 230,000 nationals had been, “persuaded to return” to face criminal proceedings in China.
China’s official statements clarified the use of depriving suspects’ children of the right to education back in China and other actions against relatives and family members in a full-on “guilt by association” campaign.
Nigeria and the People’s Republic of China established formal diplomatic relations on February 10, 1971, since then, the cordial relations have grown even stronger with Cultural and People to People Exchanges.
Story : Hilda Katu