To some people, this seems to be a stale news but to the greater majority, it is fresh news. I was alarmed hearing this on MiniJojo yesterday on AIT that the Chinese workers here in Nigeria are prisoners (be it reformed or not - as that was not mentioned). This reminds me of several cases of nigerian ladies molestation [lols] molested by the so called Chinese workers.

China's exploitation of prison labor to make low-cost products for export to the United States and other countries, is only part of the story. The Chinese export prison workers to African countries as expatriate. The case of a Chinese construction company building a road uses seventy percent to 75 percent of the construction workers who are known to be prisoners. Each year, thousands of Chinese laborers are sent to Africa and other third-world countries to build roads and work on construction projects. Governments should insure that prison labor is specifically banned before they sign any contracts with Chinese companies; not minding that all wear the same identical appearance and gray cotton suits. Exploitation of prison labor is an abuse of human rights and of commercial practice.

The German paper Der Spiegel reported opposition politician Michael Sata's claim that 80,000 "former prisoners" from China were working in Zambia. Getting more specific, Richard Behar in Fast Company said that he had interviewed an immigration "consultant" in Zambia who said she had "processed paperwork for hundreds of Chinese prisoners."

Stories about China Civil Engineering and Construction Corp (CCECC)'s $8.3 billion Lagos-Kano railway modernization contract have circulated in Nigeria and in the international press. The editor of Foreign Policy, Moises Naim, for example, mistakenly claimed in the New York Times that China was giving $9 billion in aid to finance this project. (There was actually no aid offered, although a preferential export credit of $500 million was discussed in connection with the railway). However, I've read that CCECC's price for the new railway was "hugely inflated," that the project was hastily delivered to CCECC without proper tendering, and that there was not an inadequate "front end design" and/or feasibility study before awarding the contract.

Prison labor is commonplace in China. Given the high levels of corruption, the need for local governments to raise revenues, and the multiple Chinese actors operating overseas, it's plausible that a contractor could make a deal with local prison officials.

NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT (IMMIGRATION) WAKE UP!!!! DO YOU KNOW OR INVESTIGATE THE BACKGROUND OF THE PEOPLE YOU GIVE WORK PERMIT, OR CHINESE WORKING WITHOUT WORK PERMIT, EVEN THE OVERSTAYED CHINESE IN NIGERIA.

STOP TAKING BRIBE FROM THIS CHINESE AND GIVING THEM RESIDENCE/WORK PERMIT; WHILE MAKING HIGHLY SKILLED NIGERIANS UNEMPLOYED!!!

OPEN YOUR EYES ALL NIGERIANS ANYWHERE YOU ARE!!!!!
Source: http://www..com/talk/topic,52308.0.html

Some might say that this has no base but I want you to know that it is not only happening in Nigeria but in other nations as well.

Government has no information indicating chinese engineers are prisoners – National security minister

Dominica’s Minister of National Security, Labour and Immigration Charles Savarin says he is not aware that any prisoners from China are employed on projects in Dominica.

Local businessman Jerry Brisbane raised the matter on a radio programme recently.

But Savarin told a press conference with Cabinet on Monday that government has no information in that regard.


“We have no information of any Chinese prisoner being sent to Dominica on construction work. We cannot comment on what happens overseas but with regards to the construction firm on Dominica we have no information and we have not seen it reported anywhere,” he said.

Savarin said the firm in charge of the West Coast Road project is reputable.

“We have a wonderful relationship with the people and Government of China which we are seeking to build upon and to maintain,” he said.
Source: http://dominicanewsonline.com/news/homepage/news/general/government-has-no-information-suggesting-chinese-engineers-are-prisoners-national-security-minister/

That should prove that it is not only in Nigeria but elsewhere has this been done. Even though some other nations are saying NO before they sign them into contract but I bet you, that is not done in Nigeria... as I have no proof for that BUT I know 'what' we are.

ON another news blog, I saw the news of the real China in Africa story.

[size=15pt]China in Africa: The Real Story[/size]
What more could promoters of the "China threat" idea add to the litany of charges that have grown stale over a decade? One claim is that China sends convicts to labour in developing countries. We have been to 10 African countries to research China-Africa links. Rumours of Chinese convicts circulate in each one.

The notion is not new. In the 1970s, 60,000 Chinese laboured alongside an equal number of local workers to build the Tanzania-Zambia Railway. As US historian of the railway Jamie Monson describes it, when the first 1,000 Chinese workers arrived in Tanzania, "all wearing identical gray cotton suits and balancing small blue suitcases on their shoulders ... crowds of curious onlookers gathered, some speculating that the strangers were soldiers or prisoners sentenced to hard labour."

In Africa, rumours of Chinese prisoners arise because of cultural differences in work and living habits. The rigorous working pace and discipline of Chinese employees give rise to the idea that anyone who would work so hard must be a prisoner. Also, skilled Chinese workers and engineers do not live like Western expats, who in Africa have individual houses and local servants. Many Chinese live collectively, often sharing rooms, and do their own housework. Often, local people cannot conceive that foreign professionals would live that way and imagine them to be prisoners
Popular rumours circulate for other reasons as well. In Zambia's Copperbelt, we interviewed a leader of the opposition Patriotic Front (PF). The party's head, Michael Sata, is famous for his anti-Chinese mobilisations and once claimed that "Zambia has become a labour camp. Most of the Chinese are prisoners of conscience."

The Copperbelt PF leader explained to us, however, that Zambians think that "if 100 Chinese come, 20 of them are skilled and the other 80 are unskilled prisoners ... it's a way for local people to demean the Chinese and to say we're better than the [prisoners]".

In some developing countries, rumour-mongering has a more deliberate aim and seems to be fostered as part of competition between local and Chinese construction companies. Claims of Chinese convict labourers have been made by a prominent local building firm owner in Sri Lanka and by the chief executive of a "leading player" in Kenya's construction industry. In Namibia, the owner of a local construction company told a wire service: "We have a hard time getting jobs from government, while the Chinese ship in container-loads of prisoners to work on public projects." No evidence is ever presented.

Then there is the political element; what better way to deflate the soft power of a strategic competitor than to claim that it exports prison labour and thereby undermines the employment opportunities of host peoples?

A 2010 US State Department report on human trafficking asserts that "an increasing number of Chinese and Indian men recruited to work in Chinese- or Indian-owned mines in Zambia's Copperbelt region are reportedly exploited by the mining companies in forced labour. After work hours, some Chinese miners are confined to guarded compounds surrounded by high concrete walls topped by electrified barbed wire."

We have interviewed Chinese at mines in Zambia. They are salaried, highly skilled workers, engineers or managers. Their compounds' walls and wire serve the same function as similar structures throughout Africa: to keep out intruders.

It is one thing for average people to misunderstand the presence of guest workers in their countries and quite another for competing businesspeople, politicians and researchers to take part in rumour-mongering. Brahma Chellaney, a strategic studies specialist, has recently done that. Chellaney's sensational, but unsubstantiated, charge got his essay about it into prominent newspapers globally, including this newspaper.

Neither we nor other researchers have found evidence to confirm the Chinese prisoners rumour. Let's take but a few examples. Deborah Brautigam, a US specialist in China-Africa relations, has said: "I ask about this issue fairly frequently during my research and have never come across any evidence of Chinese prisoners working in Africa." Anna Ying Chen, research associate at the South African Institute of International Affairs, has averred that "the rumour that Chinese companies employ prisoners who are confined to their own camp to save costs is indeed a misperception". And Swiss journalists Serge Michel and Michel Beuret, who visited many African countries for a book about the Chinese presence, have said that "in all our travels we have not met a single [Chinese prisoner] and feel free to assert that this is anti-Chinese propaganda".

Anti-Chinese propaganda or not, those who spread such rumours cannot explain why China's government would incur the reputational risk and expense to do so. After all, few convicts are highly skilled and, in developing countries, such labour is relatively cheap. Often claims are based on the idea that China is overflowing with prisoners, but, in fact, it has about the same number of people imprisoned (including all those in "administrative detention" as the US does, despite a population that is more than four times as large.

There may be some former Chinese prisoners among the hundreds of thousands of Chinese working in developing countries, but to contend without evidence that the Chinese government has a programme of sending out great numbers of prisoners is another matter.

Barry Sautman is a political scientist and lawyer at Hong Kong University of Science & Technology. Yan Hairong is an anthropologist at Hong Kong Polytechnic University

http://www.chinaafricarealstory.com/2010/08/chinese-prisoners-rumor-redux-south.html

Well who no go wan cover him shit??

But come to think of it, in as much as China has got the so called best prison reforms in history, why wont their prisoners be sent for rescue operations in Africa?

III. Reform of Criminals through Labour

China has criminals do productive and socially beneficial work, which is the main meaning of combining punishment and reform. China's experience in reforming criminals has shown that this measure is very effective.

It is especially important for criminals to engage in productive and socially beneficial labour. Firstly, productive labour helps criminals realize that social wealth does not come easily, fosters a love for work and helps them become accustomed to it, instills the idea of "no work, no food" in their minds, and helps them overcome bad habits such as sloth, aversion to work and hedonism. At the same time, working gives them a sense of social responsibility and law abiding spirit in addition to improving self-discipline. Secondly, having prisoners engage in an appropriate form of labour enables them to stay physically fit, which helps to ward off depression, listlessness, demoralization and even thoughts of escape, suicide or further criminal activity, ideas which spring from the monotony of prison life over many years. Thirdly, productive labour enables prisoners to acquire productive skills and knowledge which make it possible for them to earn a living when they have served their sentence. This makes it unlikely they will return to crime because of lingering bad habits or lack of job skills. Fourthly, having the prisoners engage in labour in a situation and format similar to those of normal society helps to instill the habit of working and cooperating with others in an organization in society. This enables them to adapt to a normal social environment as quickly as possible when they are returned to society.

Using forced labour as a means to reform criminals is a common practice in many countries of the world. Explicit conditions have been stipulated in the laws of many countries and in UN documents concerning forcing criminals to engage in labour.

China's law stipulates that all criminals who are able to work must participate in work activities. Those who are found to be unable to work by a doctor's examination or those who are old, infirm, disabled or otherwise unfit for work do not participate. According to statistics, about 10% of the prison population did not participate in labour in 1990. The Chinese Government opposes the use of labour as a means of punishing criminals, as well as the use of heavy labour as a means to maltreat prisoners.

China faithfully practices the use of forced labour as a reform method rather than as a method for punishment.

--- China has formulated a series of laws and decrees relating to putting prisoners to work in productive labour. Prisoners enjoy the same benefits as employees of state enterprises in terms of work hours, holidays, supply of food and edible oil, and occupational safety and health care.

--- Education is used to gradually change the prisoners' attitudes to the work activity from forced labour to conscientious work. When they first arrive, some criminals are not in the habit of working, or look down on work, so at first they must be more or less forced to engage in productive labour. The reform-through-labour institutions of China do not resort to crude methods of force to solve this problem. Instead, prisoners are subjected to continual education to teach them the importance of taking part in productive labour and to help them realize that an aversion to labour is shameful. From the beginning, they are given work which is within their ability to reform so that they gradually come to understand the meaning of work and develop an interest in it so that they eventually come to participate in reform through labour of their own free will. Take the last Emperor of China's Qing Dynasty Aisin Giorro Pu Yi as an example. When he first arrived at a Chinese prison, he was attended by people who put on and took off his clothes, including his socks, for him. Eventually, he began to willingly participate in work activities thanks to the patient education and careful arrangements found in Chinese prisons. He said he believed that the work activities played a major role in changing him from a criminal into a person who was beneficial to society.

--- In Chinese reform-through-labour institutions, a prisoner who is unable to work is exempted from productive labour. Prison staff are assigned to determine the prisoner's state of health so work can be found which the prisoner is physically able to do. Female criminals perform work which is in conformity with women's physical and psychological traits. Juvenile deliquents only work to learn skills, following a half-work and half-study schedule.

--- Civilized and safe working conditions are provided for prisoners engaging in reform through labour. In the area of occupational safety and health care, every reform-through-labour institution has a set of specific safety regulations and necessary safety measures plus special safety personnel who constantly monitor safety conditions and conduct inspections. There are explicit regulations relating to conditions in prisons and reform-through-labour institutions in terms of safety, hygiene, ventilation, light, etc.. Reform-through-labour institutions in China are judged in part by how well they conform to these regulations.

--- China insists that criminals be allowed to study and improve their production skills to make the prisoner look at the world in a new light and enable the reformed criminal to contribute to the modernization programme. One major way of judging a reform-through-labour institution is how successful it is in helping criminals learn and improve their production skills. This has played an important role in enabling reformed criminals to quickly become employed, keep their minds on their work and avoid going back.

--- Chinese reform-through-labour institutions encourage criminals who have special skills to contribute to society. In China, there have been a considerable number of criminals who became skilled workers or even key personnel in production through the assistance of administrative departments. Some have even become inventors and artists. One criminal named Mao in the First Prison of Hebei Province has made three major inventions and holds Chinese patent rights for them, winning public approval and a reduced sentence for himself in accordance with the law.

Over the past forty years, China has gained a great deal of valuable experience in reforming criminals through labour. Many prisoners have rid themselves of their bad habits through reform through labour, formulated a better outlook on life and learned to respect other people and society, and now maintain self-discipline and abide by the law. Many have had their sentence reduced or been released on parole for outstanding behaviour during the reform-through-labour process. Some who have returned to society after serving their sentence have become key production personnel, engineers, factory directors and managers. A few have even become "advanced producers" or "model workers". China's success in reforming criminals through labour has been justly praised by respected personages of great vision in the international community.

In China, products are produced by prison labour mainly to meet needs occurring within the reform-through-labour system. Only a small proportion of such products enter the domestic market through normal channels. Profit from reform- through-labour work activities is mainly used for improving the prisoners' living conditions, upgrading their common living areas and facilities and maintaining production. This has played a positive role in reducing the burden on the state and the people. There are two kinds of production in the reform- through-labour system: one is that carried out by the prisoners themselves; and the other is that carried out by the workers and their dependents in the reform-through-labour institutions. These two kinds of production are totally different in nature and should not be confused. According to statistics, the annual output value of prison labour in the reform-through-labour system for 1990 was only 2.5 billion yuan, which is about 0.08 per cent of the nation's total industrial and agricultural production output value for the year. In recent years some people in the West have been claiming that "China's prison products constitute the pillar of the Chinese national economy." Nothing could be further from the truth.

China prohibits export of products made with prison labour. No competent Chinese authorities has ever given any reform-through-labour unit the right to export commodities. On October 10, 1991, the Ministry of Economic Relations and Foreign Trade and the Ministry of Justice jointly issued a circular entitled "Reissue of Regulations Prohibiting the Export of Products Made in a Reform-through-labour Programme". The Chinese Government is very strict on this point and any violations of these regulations are dealt with severely.

To read more about the China Prison Reform, go to http://news.xinhuanet.com/zhengfu/2002-11/18/content_633180.htm

Looking back at their story, we can say it all started from good governance. We should not start comparing a Nigeria to China because they are better than us in most ramifications let alone the population itself.

We cannot say there is no corruption in China... as quoted from wikipedia,

The CCP has tried a variety of anti-corruption measures, constructing a variety of laws and agencies in an attempt to stamp out corruption.
In 2004, the CCP devised strict regulations on officials assuming posts in business and enterprise. The Central Committee for Discipline Inspection and the Central Organization Department issued a joint circular instructing Party committees, governments and related departments at all levels not to give approval for Party and government officials to take up concurrent posts in enterprises.[33]
Such measures are largely ineffective, however, due to the insufficient enforcement of the relevant laws.[6] Further, because the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection largely operates in secrecy, it is unclear to researchers how allegedly corrupt officials are disciplined and punished. The odds for a corrupt official to end up in prison are less than three percent, making corruption a high-return, low risk activity. This leniency of punishment has been one of the main reasons corruption is such a serious problem in China.[6]
While corruption has grown in scope and complexity, anti-corruption policies, on the other hand, have not changed much.[13] Communist-style mass campaigns with anti-corruption slogans, moral exhortations, and prominently displayed miscreants, are still a key part of official policy, much as they were in the 1950s.[13]
In 2009, according to internal Party reports, there were 106,000 officials found guilty of corruption, an increase of 2.5 percent on the previous year. The number of officials caught embezzling more than one million yuan (US$146,000) went up by 19 percent over the year. With no independent oversight like NGOs or free media, corruption has flourished.[34]
These efforts are punctuated by an occasional harsh prison term for major offenders, or even executions. But rules and values for business and bureaucratic conduct are in flux, sometimes contradictory, and “deeply politicized.”[13] In many countries systematic anti-corruption measures include independent trade and professional associations, which help limit corruption by promulgating codes of ethics and imposing quick penalties, watchdog groups like NGOs, and a free media. In China, these measures do not exist as a result of the CCP’s means of rule.[13]
Thus, while Party disciplinary organs and prosecutorial agencies produce impressive statistics on corruption complaints received from the public, few citizens or observers believe corruption is being systematically addressed.[13]
There are also limits to how far anti-corruption measures will go. For example, when Hu Jintao's son was implicated in a corruption investigation in Namibia, Chinese Internet portals and Party-controlled media were ordered not to report on it.[35]
At the same time, local leaders engage in "corruption protectionism," as coined by the head of the Hunan provincial Party Discipline Inspection Commission; apparatchiks thwart corruption investigations against the staff of their own agencies, allowing them to escape punishment. In some cases this has impelled high-ranking officials to form special investigative groups with approval from the central government to avoid local resistance and enforce cooperation.[36] However, since in China vertical and horizontal leadership structures often run at odds with one another, CCP anti-corruption agencies find it hard to investigate graft at the lower levels. The goal of effectively controlling corruption thus remains elusive to the ruling Party.[36]
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_China#Countermeasures

But to be sincere, how are they making it count to the extent that they are the one ruling the world from behind? Any logic u think?