The word “extradition” became a very popular and common word in Nigeria recently due to the Abba Kyari/ Hushpuppi international fraud case and the usage and mis-usage of the word clearly point to the fact that some people don’t fully understand the meaning of the word (Extradition) as a legal cum political concept hence the need for this piece to give a general and brief overview of the word “extradition” as a legal concept.
The federal government of Nigeria have been going back and forth with the United States of America as to whether to extradite Abba Kyari to the United States to go and answer for the criminal allegations bordering on conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering, and identity theft. The Attorney General of the Federation finally approved the extradition request of the United State government against the dismissed erstwhile Deputy Commissioner of Police some days back.
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Extradition is the process whereby a country surrenders its citizen that is wanted in a foreign country to go and answer for the crimes he has been accused to have committed in that foreign country.
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It is simply the surrender of an alleged criminal usually under the provisions of a treaty or statute by one authority (usually the home country of the alleged criminal) to another foreign country that has jurisdiction to try the alleged criminal for the crime.
There is a clear cut difference between extradition and deportation. Deportation is the expulsion of foreign nationals back to their home country whereas the former is the expulsion of a national or citizen from their home country to a foreign country. Extradition can also be referred to as banishment, exile, or penal transportation.
If you are a foreigner, and you are been accused of committing a crime in your country, and you decide to flee to another country to seek refuge, the country you fled to can choose to grant you refuge or deport you back to your country but a citizen of a country can only be released to a foreign country to be tried for criminal offenses by extradition process duly authorized by the attorney general of the federation.
Extradition of a national can only happen when a country has an existing extradition treaty with the other country. No country of the world has an extradition treaty with all other countries; for instance, the United States lacks extradition treaties with China, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, North Korea etc, and therefore the US government cannot request the Chinese government or the Russian government to extradite its citizen to the USA to be tried for any crime despite the gravity of the crime the foreigner has committed in the US soil.
Nigeria and USA and other commonwealth nations are under extradition treaties and that is why the United state can ask Nigeria to extradite its citizen to be tried for crimes in the United State and Nigeria will be under the legal obligation to honor the request but if Nigeria is not on extradition treaty with the USA, the US government cannot ask Nigeria to give up it’s citizen to be tried for any crime under the US jurisdiction.
Therefore, for extradition to take place in a country, it must be within or amongst the county that are on extradition treaties with each other.
The Extradition Act of 2004 is the extant law in force that supervises and regulates the process of extradition in Nigeria.
By the reason of section 1 the of act, Nigeria is under a legal obligation to release her citizen to the hands of foreign jurisdiction to be tried for offense the citizen has been accused of committing in that foreign country. The section provides thus:
1. (1) Where a treaty or other agreement (in this Act referred to as an extradition agreement) has been made by
Nigeria with any other country for the surrender by each country to the other, of persons wanted for prosecution…
According to this act, it is the Attorney General of the Federation that has the power to grant the extradition request of a foreign jurisdiction. So the request for extradition of a Nigerian National must be made in writing directly to the Attorney General of the federation.
This is the provision of s. 6 of the Extradition Act of 2004 and it reads thus:
S.6. (1) A request for the surrender of a fugitive criminal of any country shall be made in writing to the Attorney- General by a diplomatic representative or consular officer of that country and shall be accompanied by a duly authenticated warrant of arrest or certificate of conviction issued in that country.
(2) Where such a request is made to him, the Attorney-General may by an order under his hand signify to a magistrate that such a request has been made and require the magistrate to deal with the case in accordance with the provisions of this Act, but shall not make such an order if he decides on the basis of information then available to him that the surrender of the fugitive criminal is precluded by any of the provisions of subsections (1) to (7) of section of this Act.
This section further provides that the AGF may refuse to honor the extradition request of a foreign government if there’s no extradition agreement between Nigeria and the foreign jurisdiction. This is the provision of S.6(3) of the act:
S.6(3) Except insofar as an extradition agreement in force between Nigeria and the requesting country otherwise provides, the Attorney-General may refuse to make an order under this section in respect of any fugitive criminal who is a citizen of Nigeria.