Nigeria won’t be dumping ground for Venezuelan prisoners – FG
The Federal Government has said Nigeria will not be a dumping ground for Venezuelan deportees from the United States.
Minister of foreign affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, stated this during an interview on Channels TV’s Politics Today.
Tuggar was reacting to the reported pressure from the United States to send Venezuelan deportees, some of whom are from some African countries, to Nigeria.
He said Nigeria has enough problems of its own, saying the country has over 230 million people.
Tuggar said, “It would be difficult for countries like Nigeria to accept Venezuelan prisoners into Nigeria.
“We have enough problems of our own; we cannot accept Venezuelan deportees to Nigeria. We already have 230 million people.
“What Nigeria has done that differs is simple. We used to have visa on arrival that wasn’t 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,” he said.
“The same way I am talking to you on my laptop I can just simply apply for a Nigerian visa and you get it and then you fly and so it makes it easier. This is what we’ve done.
“We have different categories of visas; there are people that are first time travellers that 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.
“Our visa is not saying that every American is only being given a 90-day visa or three months or whatever. We give Americans and loads of Americans these long-term visas.”
