No fewer than 309 Nigerians renounced their citizenships of the country between 2006 and 2022, according to an official.
In 2022 alone, 159 Nigerians changed their nationalities to become citizens of other countries while 150 Nigerians changed their citizenship between 2006 to 2021.
Dr Shuaib Belgore, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Interior, disclosed this on Thursday at the 64th State House Ministerial briefing organized by the Presidential Communications Team at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, monitored by Persecondnews.
Also speaking, the Minister of Interior, Mr Rauf Aregbesola, disclosed that in 2022, the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) issued the highest number of passport booklets totaling 1.89 million in over seven years.
He said the high demands for passports across the country were as a result of exodus of Nigerians particularly youths into other countries in search of greener pastures known in local parlance as “Japa”.
Aregbesola said from 2015 to 2022, the Nigeria Immigration Service processed and issued at least 9.31 million passports.
He gave the breakdown as follows: ln 2015, 2016 and 2017, the service processed and issued 941,995, 1,035,668 and 1,136,855 passports, respectively.
In 2018, 2019 and 2020, it processed 1,242,953 and 780,047 passports respectively. While 1,056,422 and 1,899,683 passports were processed and issued in 2021 and 2022, respectively.
On the properties salvaged from fires by the fire service department of the ministry, Aregbesola said: “Properties worth N3.19 trillions were lost to various fires nationwide between 2015 and 2022 including the N46.1 billion lost in 2022.
“In 2015, 2016 and 2017, properties worth N15.7bn, N1.65bn and N5.18bn were lost in fire incidents.
“In 2018, 2019 and 2020, Nigerians lost N26.71bn, N16.46bn and N32.12bn respectively to fires. While N3.05bn and N46bn were lost in 2021 and 2022, respectively.
“The number of people saved from fire accidents stood at 2,244 while 366 persons died within the same period.”
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