Nigeria's Foreign Affairs Minister, Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, has said the list trending online of Nigerians who were jailed in Ethiopia is a made-up list.

Nigeria recently signed an agreement with the Ethiopian government to repatriate Nigerian prisoners serving sentences in Ethiopia.

A list was recently released on social media showing that of the 136 inmates to be repatriated, over 90 per cent of the names are Igbo people from the Southeast of Nigeria.

However, Odumegwu-Ojukwu dismissed the list as fake during an interview with TVC Nigeria.

She, however, admitted that Igbos dominated the original list, with 98 names.

She said, "The list trending online is a made-up list. For starters, we don't have 136 inmates. Those who are subjects of the agreement on the transfer of persons are 98 inmates of the prisons. A lot of them are from the Southeast. There are also those from the Southwest and from the South South.

"At the end of the day, crime has no ethnicity. These people are Nigerian citizens in a foreign jail. You also have to bear in mind the crimes that they are charged with. A lot of people have really gone on a wild tangent and are attributing the crimes that could be debatable. At the end of the day, if we have citizens who can come home and serve out their sentences, where they can have family visitations,"