After three weeks of investigation, the Department of State Service (DSS), has released the seven Polish nationals detained for allegedly participating in the Kano hunger protest that resulted in looting and vandalization of public as well as private properties across the state.
The six students and a lecturer from Warsaw University were accused of joining dozens of youths waving Russian flags during the protests against President Bola Tinubu’s economic policies amid high inflation in the northern state.
The development was confirmed by Poland’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday through a statement made available, stating that the seven nationals were in good health and would be leaving the country before the end of this week.
The ministry’s spokesperson, Pawel Wronski, said their passports, laptops, and belongings had been returned, that they were in good health, and that they were staying at the university campus in the northern city of Kano and would return to Poland this week.
“I would like to confirm that the young people are already free, back in Kano, on campus, with passports,” Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski said in a video posted online, showing him speaking to the representative of the young people’s parents on the phone.
After the six students and lecturer’s arrest in Kano State where they had visited as part of the requirement for their course to study the Hausa language, officials in Poland, which has frosty relations with Russia following the Soviet era and other historical grievances, responded skeptically to this, saying it seemed unlikely and that they believed the situation was more likely a misunderstanding.
“Our students were at the wrong time at the wrong place,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Wronski said, even after they were held at a Kano hotel while the Polish government sought their release.
