The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, has revealed that the United States is exerting pressure on Nigeria and other African countries to accept deportees from Venezuela.
Tuggar made the disclosure on Thursday night during an appearance on Channels Television’s “Politics Today”, monitored by Persecondnews, where he revealed that some of the Venezuelan deportees are US prisoners.
The minister also clarified that the fresh 10 % tariffs imposed on Nigeria by President Donald Trump’s administration may not have anything to do with President Bola Tinubu’s meeting with BRICS nations.
He said: “The issue of tariffs may not necessarily have to do with us participating 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.
“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. We already have 230 million people. You will be the same people that would castigate us if we acquiesce to accepting Venezuelans from US prisons to be brought in.”
Persecondnews recalls that President Trump had met with the Presidents of five West African nations – Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania, and Senegal – at the White House on Wednesday, notably excluding President Tinubu.
He also announced a 10% tariff on Nigerian goods exported to the US, a move many had anticipated following President Tinubu’s attendance at the BRICS summit in Brazil after Trump’s earlier threat.
Prior to the meeting, the US Embassy in Nigeria had announced visa restrictions for Nigerians on Tuesday, introducing single-entry visas with a three-month validity period.
Tuggar expressed concerns that the US demand for Nigeria to accept Venezuelan deportees could set an unfair precedent
He said: “The issue of accepting Venezuelan deportees, honestly, I do not think is something that Nigeria is in a position to work with.
“And I think it would be unfair to insist that Nigeria accepts 300 Venezuelan deportees. Maybe that might just even be the beginning.”
He also addressed the new visa policy by the US, noting that the claim that the new policy was based on reciprocity was false
The minister explained that Nigeria operated and issued a 90-day visa policy, the same as the US, stating that the only difference was that Nigeria had introduced electronic e-visas to save time.
He said: “We are talking to the Americans. We are engaging them. We are also explaining and reminding them that we issue them five-year multiple entry visas, the same way that they issue regular travellers five-year multiple entry visas.
“What Nigeria has done that differs is simple. We used to have a visa-on-arrival that was not running efficiently.
“We introduced these online electronic visas that you can apply for so that it saves you time, instead of just arriving and then going through the process of getting the visa when you have already arrived.
“We have different categories of visas. There are people who are first-time travellers who are coming as tourists that are probably not likely to come back to Nigeria again, maybe because they are coming for a short while, and they get those 90-day visas.
“So our visa is not saying that every American is only being given 90-day visas or three months or whatever. We give Americans, there are loads of Americans that have these long-term visas. It is not based on reciprocity.”
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