Egusi: Mexico to apologise to Nigerian for illegal detention

The Punch

Friday, March 26, 2010

Egusi: Mexico to apologise to Nigerian for illegal detention

Agency reporter

Mexican authorities are now under pressure to apologise to the family of a United States-based Nigerian, Okoronkwo Umeham, who was illegally detained for two days while crossing the American border into Mexico on a visit last week, Empowered Newswire reports.


US media reports said that Okoronkwo Umeham, 73, who is also a US citizen, spent two days in a Mexican jail in the town of Tijuana because Mexican border guards who are English illiterates mistook ingredients of an Igbo soup, Egusi, he was taking to his relative in Mexico for illegal drugs.

Although the Nigerian has now been released after the Mexicans discovered their error, his family is insisting on an apology.

His wife, Mrs Gail Umeham, said after his release from two days of detention that her husband had been humiliated by the experience. "It would have been nice if someone had said sorry," she was reported to have demanded, according to media reports in the US.

Umeham, who works as a social worker in San Diego, US, was detained while crossing the border from San Diego to Tijuana last week because overzealous Mexican border inspectors thought he was carrying a stimulant popular in East Africa but illegal in Mexico called khat.

But Umeham was also taking along dried fish, vegetables and spices, to be used to prepare a famous and spicy Igbo soup to a younger relative, Nnanna Nwafor, who lives in Tijuana, Mexico.

Curiously, Umeham had taken the same ingredients to Nnanna last September without any incident and turned them over to inspectors during his last visit, not knowing they were suspicious already.

Associated Press reports that the Mexican inspectors asked if the labeled packages contained marijuana, and Umeham replied in the negative. But the language difference did'nt allow Umeham to explain what they were and the Mexicans offered no interpreters, preferring instead to detain the 73-year old man.

According to his own accounts, Umeham said Mexican authorities put him in jail, telling him they needed to test the suspicious materials.

Local US media reports quoted a Mexican official, Javier Cossio, the head of the federal attorney general's office in Tijuana, having confirmed Umeham's arrest.

Cossio told the San Diego Union-Tribune, a US newspaper that contents of the bags that Umeham was carrying had to be tested and that Umeham had to be checked for drug use.

But afterwards, the Mexican authorities concluded "he was not carrying any drugs," nor did Umeham tested positive for any drug.

Nigerian diplomats in Mexico could not be reached as at press time to comment. But Umeham's American citizenship is expected to also enhance his right to redress if the Mexicans refuse to apologise for the infringement on his freedom of movement.

Umeham has lived in San Diego for 12 years, and the vegetables mistaken by the Mexicans were still in bags from San Diego's African Caribbean Food store when the Mexican guards mistook them for khat.

"The whole situation was really unnecessary," Umeham told another news agency, UPI. "It shouldn't happen to anybody."