WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish diplomats on Friday said they were making progress as they appealed for the release of seven citizens who were detained in Nigeria in what Warsaw believes was a misunderstanding that happened as protests were underway in the West African country.
Six Polish students and a lecturer from Warsaw University, who were taking part in a program to study the Hausa language, were detained earlier this week in the state of Kano in northern Nigeria.
Nigeria’s secret service said they were arrested for carrying Russian flags during a protest — something Polish officials say they find unlikely.
The Polish consul in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, met Friday with the detained students as Poland sought to clarify their legal situation.
They “are feeling well and in good condition. They are currently living in a hotel in a good district of the city,” Poland's Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “No charges have been brought against them, and procedures are underway to conclude the investigation."
Deputy Foreign Minister Jakub Wisniewski earlier appealed to Nigeria to allow the students and lecturer to return home to their families, briefing reporters after meeting separately with Nigeria’s chargé d’affaires and the families of the detained Poles.
“During the meeting, I conveyed that I was convinced that the students’ behavior could have resulted from their ignorance of local customs, culture and laws. I appealed for the possibility of their return to Poland, to their homes, where their families are waiting for them,” Wisniewski said.
Wisniewski said he did not believe the students had been carrying Russian flags.
Pro-Russian sentiment is rare in the Central European nation, which has bad memories of suffering under Russian rule in the past. Polish society is today deeply critical of Russian aggression in Ukraine and strongly backs Ukraine.
Wisniewski noted that there is currently a curfew in place and a ban on demonstrations in Nigeria, where large protests have been taking place in the nation of 220 million in reaction to high inflation and hunger.
A few Nigerian protesters have been seen waving Russian flags in northern states, continuing a trend previously seen in Africa in coup-hit countries where pro-Russian sentiments are growing as military governments sever ties with the West.
People wave Russian flags during a protest in Kaduna, Nigeria, Monday, Aug 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Ibrahim)
People wave Russian flags during a protest in Kaduna, Nigeria, Monday, Aug 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Ibrahim)
Olympic sponsor Panasonic is terminating its contract with the IOC at the end of the year, the company said in a statement Tuesday.
Panasonic is one of 15 companies that are so-called TOP sponsors for the International Olympic Committee. It's not known the value of the Panasonic sponsorship, but sponsors contribute more than $2 billion in a four-year cycle to the IOC.
Two other Japanese companies are also among the IOC's 15 leading sponsors. Toyota, which for several months has been reportedly ready to end its contract, was contacted Tuesday by The Associated Press but offered no new information.
“Toyota has been supporting the Olympic and Paralympic movements since 2015 and continues to do so,” Toyota said in a statement. “No announcement to suggest otherwise has been made by Toyota."
Japanese sponsors seem to have turned away from the Olympics, likely related to the one-year delay in holding the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The COVID-19 delay reduced sponsors' visibility with no fans allowed to attend competition venues, ran up the costs, and unearthed myriad corruption scandals around the Games.
Tiremaker Bridgestone told AP “nothing has been decided.”
Toyota had a contact valued at $835 million — reported to be the IOC's largest when it was announced in 2015. It included four Olympics beginning with the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Games in South Korea and ran through the just-completed Paris Olympics and Paralympics.
Reports in Japan suggest Toyota may keep its Paralympic Olympic sponsorship.
The IOC TOP sponsors are: ABInBev, Airbnb, Alibaba, Allianz, Atos, Bridgestone, Coca-Cola, Deloitte, Intel, Omega, Panasonic, P&G, Samsung, Toyoto, and Visa.
In a report several months ago by the Japanese news agency Kyodo, unnamed sources said Toyota was unhappy with how the IOC uses sponsorship money. It said the money was “not used effectively to support athletes and promote sports.”
Japan was once a major font to revenue, but increasingly the IOC has sought out sponsors from China, with increasing interest from the Middle East and India.
Japan officially spent $13 billion on the Tokyo Olympics, at least half of which was public money. A government audit suggested the real cost was twice that. The IOC contribution was about $1.8 billion.
The Tokyo Games were mired in corruption scandals linked to local sponsorships and the awarding of contracts. Dentsu Inc, the huge Japanese marketing and public relations company, was the marketing arm of the Tokyo Olympics and raised a record-$3.3 billion in local sponsorship money. This is separate from TOP sponsors.
French prosecutors also looked into alleged vote-buying in the IOC’s decision in 2013 to pick Tokyo as the host for the 2020 Summer Games.
The IOC had income of $7.6 billion in the last four-year cycle ending with the Tokyo Games. Figures have not been released yet for the cycle ending with the Paris Olympics.
The IOC’s TOP sponsors paid over $2 billion in that period. The figure is expected to reach $3 billion in the next cycle.
AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
This photo shows the headquarters of Panasonic in Kadoma, Osaka prefecture, western Japan, on Nov. 7, 2017. (Kyodo News via AP)
