Nigeria Rejects US Push to Take Venezuela Deportees

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar has said the country will not yield to pressure from the United States to accept deportees, including Venezuelan nationals and prisoners held in US jails.

In an interview on Thursday,  Tuggar dismissed Washington’s demands, saying Nigeria already has its own challenges and cannot accommodate foreign inmates.

Quoting the 1990s US rap group Public Enemy, Mr Tuggar said: “Flava Flav has problems of his own. I can’t do nothin’ for you, man.”

“We already have over 230 million people,” he said, adding that it would be “unfair” to expect Nigeria to take in 300 Venezuelan deportees.

His comments follow new visa restrictions imposed by the US this week. Under what it calls a “global reciprocity realignment,” the US State Department announced that most non-immigrant visas for Nigerian, Cameroonian and Ethiopian citizens will now be valid for only three months and limited to a single entry.

Mr Tuggar suggested the visa changes were being used as a pressure tactic.