A group, the Ohanaeze Youth Council (OYC), has alleged that over 5,000 Nigerian youths are illegally detained in the Republic of Benin and asked the Federal Government to investigate it.
At a press conference in Abuja, the group urged the federal government to investigate its claims, adding that its members had embarked on month-long research on the illegal detention of Nigerians in the neighbouring country, reports Daily Independent.
The national president-general of OYC, Comrade Igboayaka O. Igboayaka, who stated this at a press conference in Abuja, also alleged that some of the detainees are being used for organ harvesting and slave trafficking.
Igboayaka decried the alleged extrajudicial killings, harassment, maltreatment and undue detention of innocent Nigerian youths who are merely doing their legitimate business in some states and cities in the Republic of Benin.
He said, “It is shocking that an estimated over five thousand (5000) Nigerians in which over 98% are youth of average age of 25 to 50 years, and 95% are innocent Nigerians languishing in thirteen (13) prisons in Benin Republic”
He listed the prisons as Akpro Misserete Prison, Cotonou Prison, Abomey-Calavi Prison, Ouidah Prison, Adjara Lokossa Porto Novo prison, Parakou prison and Kandi Prison.