Section 1: Immunities of foreign envoys, etc.

(1) Subject to the provisions of this Act, every foreign envoy and every foreign consular officer, the members of the families of those persons, the members of their official or domestic staff, and the members of the families of their official staff, shall be accorded immunity from suit and legal process and inviolability of residence and official archives to the extent to which they were respectively so entitled under the law in force in Nigeria immediately before the coming into operation of this Act.
(2) Any writ or process sued forth or prosecuted before or after the coming into operation of this Act, whereby any foreign envoy or foreign consular officer authorised and received as such by the Government of Nigeria or any member of the official or domestic staff of such foreign envoy or foreign consular officer is liable to arrest or imprisonment, or his or their goods or chattels are liable to distress, seizure or attachment, shall be void.
(3) Nothing in this section shall-
(a) authorise immunity from arrest of any member of the official or domestic staff of a foreign envoy or foreign consular officer unless the name of such person was, before the arrest, recorded with the Minister by the foreign envoy or foreign consular officer; or
(b) confer the benefits of this section on any merchant or other trader within the meaning of any Act relating to bankruptcy or insolvency, who is in the service of a foreign envoy or foreign consular officer.