A female Nigerian citizen, identified as @dunchichi on Twitter, has been allegedly arrested and sentenced to a one year jail term in the United Arab Emirates for a yet-to-be-disclosed offence.
A Twitter user, @jerrydoubles, alerted Nigerians on social media to the incident while calling on the intervention of the media, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission boss, Abike Dabiri and some activists.
He wrote, “It is sad and regrettably heartrending to tell you all that @dunchichi was sentenced on 12th Oct 22, to 1yr in jail in Dubai. Her family are devastated and Nigeria didn’t save her. Cc @nidcom_gov @DavidHundeyin @FS_Yusuf_ @SavvyRinu @mrmacaronii @MobilePunch @daily_trust.”
According to him, “Her sentence came from the backdrop that she got a family visa to travel. But in fact, she was there with her sister. It got messy & complicated, she was released on arrival after being detained for several hours, only to be sentenced when she was returning to Nigeria.”
The victim, @dunchichi had tweeted on the 31st August 2022, “I’m at Dubai international airport and myself and some tiger Nigerians with valid visas are being held in a room hours after arriving with no explanation and no information on what we can do. Please help me. There’s more than 20 of us.”
She further alleged that the authorities would neither send them to Nigeria nor let them into the country after all they had been through.”If they are sending us back. Then they should send us back instead of holding us here without reason after long flights from different destinations,” she wrote.
Apparently frustrated, she tweeted days after saying, “Nigerians should stop visiting Dubai. Cos we cannot be humiliated this way by the same people that issued us visas. Use your money to come and get humiliated.”
As of the time of the report, the NIDCOM has not released an official statement conderning alleged imprisonment.
Recall that the United Arab Emirates has imposed a visa ban on Nigerians and is now rejecting visa applications.
On Friday, October 21, a notice was sent to the UAE’s trade partners in Nigeria, including travel agencies.
