Rumors have it that China has police stations in Nigeria and some other countries. However, top Chinese officials have debunked such rumors.
Rumors have it that China has police stations in Nigeria and some other countries. However, top Chinese officials have debunked such rumors.
This was refuted by a phone call with these top officials and they have disregarded such news.
China dispels information about running ‘police stations’ in Nigeria
As previously reported by Vanguard on Tuesday, China established a police station in the most populated African country among 110 countries to combat criminal activity among its citizens living overseas.
The study grew out of an investigation by the rights organization Safeguard Defenders titled "110 Overseas Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild."
In an exclusive interview with Vanguard on Wednesday, a top Chinese official responded to the news by saying that diplomatic relations cannot allow any government to open police posts in another sovereign country outside its borders.
The source said, “There is no such station in Nigeria or everywhere. This is because no sovereign country may allow other countries to establish their own (police) stations on their territory. "Isn't this common sense?"
The Chinese official stated that there are outreach programs in countries where Chinese residents live to assist and protect them from terrorism, abduction, and other crimes that could risk their lives.
"Also, there is only one category of outreach services for Chinese communities, therefore China has no intention or spare energy to run police stations outside its borders," he says.
“You know in Nigeria, there are a lot of insecurity issues happening almost every day. I cannot remember, maybe September or August or July or June, there were terrorists, bandits, they had kidnapped a lot of innocent persons, and also among these innocent persons, there were some Chinese nationals.
He stated that the outreach helped collaborate with local security operatives in managing the forenamed incident.
“What I mean (by the outreach services) is that every nation has its mission to care for and help their own nationals. Says another source from the China side.
He furthered: “So they have no right, they have no power to decide or command Nigeria government or police forces, what they can only do is to assist or play the outside role to help the Chinese nationals.”
“So the fundamental reason or factor is the locals and the Nigerian government, so we fully respect the sovereignty issue. So there is no sovereignty issue, so the report ( Safeguard Defenders’ ‘110 Overseas Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild’) is fake news,”