China Sentences Nigerian To Death.

China Sentences Nigerian to Death
By Paul Ohia with agency report, 08.31.2007
Friday, August 31, 2007

A Chinese court has handed a suspended death sentence to a Nigerian, Obi Chinedu, for trafficking in 415 grammes of heroin.
 
His Ghanaian teenage accomplice Martin Offori was given 15-year jail term followed by expulsion.

Chinedu was arrested last year in the Central Asian border region of Xinjiang after he aroused suspicion when he dashed to the toilet during a routine police inspection of the train he was riding on.
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His luggage, which he had thrown out the train window, was found to contain hard drugs. He was sentenced to death with a two-year suspension.

The Ghanaian was arrested on a train from Xinjiang's capital Urumqi to the central province of Hubei, after police found more than 3,000 grammes of heroin in his luggage.

The court ruled that the two were involved in a joint drug trafficking operation but added that Offori was treated with leniency because he was under 18. It did not give his exact age.

China has launched a "people's war" against drug trafficking, with a series of crackdown campaigns and harsh sentences.

Its border regions of Xinjiang in the northwest, and Yunnan province, which neighbours Southeast Asia's opium-producing "Golden Triangle", are considered the heart of China's drug trade.

Recently, a Nigerian teenager, Iwuchukwu Amara Tochi sentenced to death by Singaporean authorities for drug trafficking. His execution was carried out on January  26, 2007 despite pleas from the former president, Olusegun Obasanjo for his pardon.

Amnesty international and Nigerian based Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) also joined in the plea for leniency which was rebuffed by Singaporean authorities.

The boy was arrested at the Singaporean Changi Airport in November, 2004, for carrying about 727 grammes of heroin valued at 970,000 dollars after arriving from Dubai. He was convicted in December, 2005. His execution was carried out in spite of a letter of appeal by the Nigerian government for forgiveness.

The spate of drug trafficking among Nigerians has been on the rise in recent times with several arrests at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja.

Not long ago, two suspects were apprehended at the Airport.

Mohammed Ibrahim Wudil, a crew member of Virgin Atlantic, who was caught with 1.7 kilogrammes of a substance believed to be cocaine just before the take-off of his Heathrow Airport - bound aircraft and a few days later  Babatunde Jamiu, a passenger on the same airline and route had ingested parcels containing items suspected to be narcotics.

Nigeria does not sentence drug peddlers to death and this has led to public outcry whenever a Nigerian is sentenced to death abroad. However, sentences for drug traffickers in Nigeria are usually grave.

Good for them - in Nigeria, its three months or six months or u pay 10,000 naira only.

The cheap slap on the wrist is why some people think its OK to engage in this disgusting act.  we all looking for quick money.

If the options available to you were available to those boys may be they would not have made that choice, that is what you must remember at all times.

There activities are a consequences of the hopelessness of our country, which is caused largely by the looting elite.

I am not condoning drug traficking, but literally celebrating and glorifying death sentence  of a Nigerian abroad is not the best.

The elite politicians who loot the Nation's treasury and put those boys in such hopeless situation and no choice deserve more death than those boys, and before we celebrate their sentence to death we should honestly look to see if our fathers or immediate brothers are remotely responsible for their hopelessness.

no be so? na true talk now. let charity begin at home