The federal government has succeeded in securing the release of a Nigerian student, Ms. Zainab Aliyu, arrested and detained in Saudi Arabia for alleged drug trafficking.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Suleiman Mustafa, who made this known to journalists in Abuja yesterday, said the country’s diplomatic interventions paid off when the innocent young lady was granted freedom in faraway Saudi Arabia.
Mustafa also hinted that the other person arrested along with her, Mr. Ibrahim Abubakar, would also be released today.
Zainab, a student of Maitama Sule University, Kano, was arrested after a banned drug, tramadol, was found in her bag in Saudi Arabia, while she maintained her innocence, claiming that the substance was put in her luggage by unknown persons.
According to Mustafa, “I am very pleased to inform you that in the last couple of minutes that Zainab has been released to our mission in Saudi Arabia and that is a news that I believe will be very heart-warming and will be relieving also to both the family and Nigerians that have had to express their concerns and their care about these two Nigerians, who have found themselves in this situation basically as a result of some criminals whose activities have put these Nigerians into very difficult situation.
“I am happy to announce that Zainab, especially has been released in the last couple of minutes. She is with our mission. She is in good state and in good hands now and we believe the other gentleman, Ibrahim Abubakar, will also be released by tomorrow because by the time they were able to get Zainab out it was closing time at the prisons, so they couldn’t get him.”
“In the last few days, we have seen issues that were generated by the arrest, in Saudi Arabia, of a young Nigerian girl and another person, which is actually connected with a drug related offense.
“The ministry, from the date of such arrest, has put in place so many efforts in order to secure the release of that young girl and the other gentleman.
We realised upon investigations at the Nigerian end that there is cartel that specialise in packaging drugs from the airport and attaching them to innocent passengers.’’
The ministry added that through investigation some arrests were made and are right now undergoing judicial process – prosecution, stating that the Ministry in conjunction with Nigeria’s mission in Saudi have made several efforts in order to establish the innocence of these people, the young girl and the other gentleman.
“Arising from that effort, at least we were able to bring to the attention of the Saudis the level of innocence of these two Nigerians and we have engaged over and over; we have given the mission various instructions and in a typical diplomatic way we have raised several note verbal to the ministry in Saudi.
