Metro

Outrage as Chinese government opens police stations in Nigeria, Lesotho, Tanzania

Published

2 years ago

October 19, 2022

The Chinese government on Tuesday, announced that it has opened police stations in Nigeria, Lesotho and Tanzania, in its bid to “curtail criminal activities being perpetrated by its citizens abroad.”

The Chinese police stations known as ‘Service Stations’ are located in Benin City in Nigeria, Maseru in Lesotho and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.

A report by a pan-Asian human rights group, Safeguard Defenders titled, ‘110 Overseas Chinese Policing Gone Wild,’ noted that the Chinese government developed and established the overseas “service stations” to bring “down on all kinds of illegal and criminal activities involving Chinese based overseas” in accordance with international laws and best policing practices.

It added that the Chinese governent has been worried that many of its citizens living abroad were involved in crimes which is becoming alarming, hence the need to create the police stations in other countries.

The Safeguard Defenders report went on to criticise the establishment of the overseas police stations.

“Rather than using legal forms of international cooperation, they resort to pressuring targets to return, in fact, some 230,000 people for a little over a year. Tied to this, a new law this year will establish full extraterritorial powers for China.

“Whether the targets are dissidents, corrupt officials or low-level criminals, the problem remains the same: the use of irregular methods — often combining carrots with sticks — against the targeted individual or their family members in China undermines any due process and the most basic rights of suspects.

“Rather than cooperating with local authorities in the full respect of territorial sovereignty, it prefers… to cooperate with (United Front-linked) overseas ‘NGOs’ or ‘civil society associations’ across the the continents, setting up an alternative policing and judicial system within third countries, and directly implicating those organisations in the illegal methods employed to pursue ‘fugitives’.”

But while justifying the establishment of the police stations, the Minqing County Procuratorate, Li Riqin, said:

“Through the establishment of overseas service centers, Qingtian County Police has made breakthroughs in its overseas pursuit of fugitives.

“Since 2018, the Qingtian police have detected and solved six criminal cases related to overseas Chinese, successfully arrested a red notice fugitive, and persuaded two suspects to surrender under the assistance from the Overseas centers.

“While establishing these operations to hunt down those accused of fraud and telecommunications fraud, China has identified nine countries particularly prone to hosting Chinese nationals engaging in such criminal activities, the ‘nine forbidden countries.”

Related Topics:China Featured Lesotho Nigeria Police Stations Tanzania

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Metro

All my tough policy decisions are in Nigerians’ interest— Tinubu

Published

29 mins ago

April 26, 2024

Akanimoh Etim

President Bola Tinubu of Nigeria has insisted that all his tough policy decisions and reforms have been taken with the interest of Nigerians at heart.

Tinubu, who made the assertion in Hague, The Netherlands, during the business session of the bilateral meeting with the Dutch team led by Prime Minister Mark Rutte, insisted that though some of the policies had brought hardship on Nigerian masses, he was not afraid to implement more of such policies as they would yield positive results in the end.

“I am a determined leader of my people. I am ever ready to take tough decisions in the best interest of the people, even if with initial pains,” Tinubu said.

“I have and will continue to take the difficult decisions that will benefit our people, even if there is short-term pain.

“We have gone through the worst of the storms. I am unafraid of the consequences once I know that my actions are in the best long-term interests of all Nigerians.

“The Nigerian naira is one of the world’s best-performing currencies today.

“We took the necessary risk, and all resilient Nigerians kept faith with us.

“They will be rewarded, and the reward will only be greater as we partner effectively with you on new opportunities for development.

“As leaders, we must make decisions for the benefit of our nations, and we cannot shy away from that.”

The President also noted that symbiotic economic ties remain the best long-term path to sustainable and mutual prosperity rather than one-sided relationships in which bilateral trade is skewed too much in one direction.

Metro

Nigeria govt cancels 924 dormant mining licences

Published

2 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Nigeria’s minister of mines said on Wednesday that 924 expired mining licences had been cancelled immediately.

The country now wants investors to apply for the affected permits, which will be given out on a “first come, first served” basis.

In a statement, Mines Minister Dele Alake said that 528 exploration licenses, 20 mining leases, 101 quarry licenses, and 273 small-scale mining licenses would be impacted.

As part of major changes in the mining industry, more than 1,600 mining titles were taken away in November for not paying the required fees.

Alake said that the action was taken to stop “licence racketeering,” which is when people or businesses buy titles to minerals that are worth a lot of money and then sell the licenses to the highest price.

“By creating a secondary, black market to pawn mineral licences, the unsuspecting and unwary investor is misled into believing that he can only obtain licence by patronising the black market. This discourages investment,” Alake said.

“It is our belief that this decision will sanitise the licensing system by penalising those who have commercialized the opportunities offered by the sector into a bazaar, he added.

Nigeria wants to attract investors to a mining industry that hasn’t been developed much in the past. To do this, they are giving incentives like not having to pay taxes on profits and sending them back to Nigeria in full.

Nigeria has had trouble getting value from its huge mineral riches because it didn’t invest in or take care of them.

After making it harder for foreign companies to get mining licenses last year, Africa’s biggest oil provider will only give them to companies that process their minerals in the country itself. The country is also rich in lithium, gold, and limestone.