Did China Truly Open Police Stations In Nigeria? | See Details

By Tolulope Oke

A viral report on the internet tagged, “110 Overseas Police Service Centres” claimed that China has opened Police stations in Nigeria, other African countries, Europe, America et al.

The human rights watchdog, Safeguard Defenders made this report stating that the aim was to tackle the criminal activities among its people residing abroad.

“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 five 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’,” said the rights watchdog.

The report stated that Chinese officials claimed that from April 2021 to July 2022, 230,000 nationals had been “persuaded to return” to face criminal procedures in China as part of a significant statewide drive to combat fraud and telecommunication fraud by Chinese individuals residing abroad.

However, the Chinese government has denied any claims of such, stating that “there is no such station in Nigeria or everywhere. This is because any sovereign country cannot allow other countries to set up their own (police) stations on their land. This is common sense, right?” Vanguard revealed.

According to Zhang Hang, the press officer for the Chinese Embassy in Nigeria, diplomatic relations cannot permit any government to establish police stations outside of its own borders in another sovereign nation.

However, Hang claimed that there are efforts being made in the nations where Chinese citizens reside to help protect them from terrorism, kidnapping, and other crimes that could risk their lives.

“Also, there is only one category of outreach services for Chinese communities so China does not have any intention or spare energy to run police stations outside its shores. I hope that maybe you can make an objective report,” he said.

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Hang stated that the outreach helped in collaborating with local security operatives in managing the aforesaid incident.

“What I mean (by the outreach services) is that every nation has its mission to care for and help their own nationals.

“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,