Twenty-one Nigerians are among the 121 prisoners on death row in Indonesia. They were convicted for drug trafficking.

Thirty of the prisoners will be executed before the end of 2017. Eighteen of them will be executed after July 6, the Eid el-Fitr Muslim holiday, which ends the holy month of Ramadan.

Mrs. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, Senior Special Assistant on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora to President Muhammadu Buhari, disclosed this on Monday.

Bambang Waluyo, Indonesian Deputy Attorney General, announced the execution schedule during a parliamentary hearing in Jakarta. The Justice Ministry said those on death row in Indonesia are mostly convicted of drug-related crimes and that at least 35 of them are foreigners.

In 2015, Indonesia had equally executed 14 convicts, all but two of them foreigners, in a move that drew international condemnation.

Dabiri-Erewa noted that one Nigerian was executed in the last batch of executions. Under Indonesian law, each convict would face a squad of 10 gunmen.

Dabiri-Erewa, who was chairman, House of Representatives’ Committee on Diaspora, before her present appointment, noted that when a Nigerian delegation visited Indonesia in 2010 to plead for Nigerians on death row, that the Indonesian government made it clear that the death penalty is the law.

“As the world keeps appealing to Indonesia not to kill them, we must also admonish our citizens to avoid crime and be good ambassadors wherever they find themselves,” she said.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who took office in 2014, has taken a tough stance against drug trafficking, saying that the country is facing a drug emergency.

•Adapted from an Independent report. Photo shows Abike Dabiri-Erewa.

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