As news of his sentence broke out last week, Nigerians across the world have called on the Nigerian Federal government to make concerted effort to negotiate his life with the communist government of Vietnam.
He has been described as one of the victims of Nigeria government’s neglect with millions of youths in the nation wasting away due to unemployment, and thousands more on self-seeking enslavement across the world looking for life lines have met their untimely death.
Hundreds of Nigerian youths are dying every year through many disgraceful means in desperation to escape to other countries of the world for more dignified life.
Michael’s life could be wasted within weeks unless the Nigerian government intervenes to show its disgust over the sentence, claimed by many to have been racially motivated.
Sources in Nigeria had claimed that Michael is an orphan and had made the desperate bid in search of a better life abroad. Hardship and lack of hope had driven him to petty drug trading.
Michael was sentenced to death in Vietnam for transporting a small quantity of heroin last week. His Vietnamese wife was also sentences to life imprisonment, raising questions of racism and dislike for foreigners the so called substance claimed to be heroin was caught with the wife who was saaid to be acting on her husband’s behalf.
According to a court official last Wednesday, Michael and his common-law spouse Nguyen Thi Hai Anh, 27, were convicted on Tuesday in Ho Chi Minh City by an Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court.
He was sentenced to death on March 22 for illegal transportation of hard drugs.
The couple were arrested in December 2009.
