Nigeria’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr. Yusuf Tuggar, has vowed that the African giant will not bow to pressure from the US President Donald Trump administration to accept Venezuelan deportees or third-country prisoners from the US.
Mr. Tuggar’s comments follow threats from the US to restrict visas and hike tariffs on countries that do not comply with its deportation policy.
“We already have over 230 million people,” the minister said before adding: “It will be unfair for Nigeria to accept 300 Venezuelan deportees.”
He suggested that the US’s recent visa curbs on Nigerian travellers were not “reciprocal” but a pressure tactic.
“You will be the same person who will castigate us if we acquiesce to accepting Venezuelan prisoners into Nigeria,” Mr. Taggar said.
The US Department of State said earlier this week that, as part of a “global reciprocity realignment,” nearly all non-immigrant and non-diplomatic visas issued to citizens of Nigeria, Cameroon, and Ethiopia would now be single-entry and valid for only three months.
Meanwhile, Trump has threatened to impose an extra 10% tariff on countries that support the BRICS alliance’s policies that go against US interests. In January this year, Nigeria became a partner of BRICS, a group seen as designed to challenge the political and economic power of the West.
The US embassy in Nigeria has denied that the Trump administration was engaging in tit-for-tat clampdowns on visas as punishment for Nigeria not giving in to their demands. The real reason for the visa restrictions, it said, was “technical and security benchmarks” that had to be respected.
Mr Tuggar said the threat of tariff hikes did not “necessarily have to do with our participation in Brics.”
“You have to also bear in mind that the US is mounting considerable pressure on African countries to accept Venezuelans to be deported from the US, some straight out of prison,” he added.
“It will be difficult for a country like Nigeria to accept Venezuelan prisoners into Nigeria. We have enough problems of our own; we cannot accept Venezuelan deportees to Nigeria for crying out loud,” he concluded.
