By
Fatimah Idera
A Nigerian woman, known as @dunchichi on Twitter, has been sentenced to a one-year jail term by the United Arab Emirates government for a social media post, showing how some Nigerians were illegally detained at Dubai international airport.
On 31st August, @dunchichi posted on Twitter how she was detained together with other Nigerians despite possessing a valid visa.
The tweet reads “I’m at Dubai international airport and myself and some other Nigerians with valid Visas are being held in a room hours after arriving with no explanation and no information on what we can do. Please help me. There’s more than 20 of us,”
Afterwards, another user, @jerrydoubles, who claimed to be her relative, on Saturday announced that @dunchichi had been sent to jail for an offence relating to her earlier post in Dubai.
He said, “It is sad and regrettably heartrending to tell you all that @dunchichi was sentenced on 12th Oct 22, to 1yr in jail in Dubai as Her family are devastated and Nigeria didn’t save her.”
“Her sentence came from the backdrop that she got a family visa to travel and she was there with her sister. It got messy & complicated, she was released on arrival after being detained for several hours, only to be sentenced when she was returning to Nigeria.”
“They are capitalising on the fact that she made a video and then posted them on her Twitter timeline to narrate the ordeal. They said it was a cybercrime in their country, She went ahead to delete it but that didn’t soften them. Now she is jailed.”
He further added that her family were planning to protest her conviction at the Dubai consulate office in Abuja.
Recall that the United Arab Emirates government on Friday announced a visa ban on Nigerians, adding that all submitted applications are rejected and fees non-refundable.
According to Article 21 Federal Law No. 5 of 2015 of UAE, states that anyone caught photographing others without permission, or sharing hates post, shall be punished by imprisonment for a period of 6months and a fine not less than AED 150,000.
