Yusuf Tuggar, Nigeria’s overseas affairs minister at BRICS summit in Brazil 2025.
MAURO PIMENTEL/AFP through Getty Pictures
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MAURO PIMENTEL/AFP through Getty Pictures
LAGOS, Nigeria — Nigeria’s authorities says it’ll resist strain from the Trump administration to just accept deportees from Venezuela and different third international locations.
In an interview with Nigeria’s Channels TV on Friday, Overseas Minister Yusuf Tuggar mentioned the U.S. was pressuring a number of African nations to just accept overseas nationals the U.S. needs to deport.
“We already have over 230 million people,” Tuggar mentioned. “In the words of the famous U.S. rap group Public Enemy — you’ll remember a line from Flava Flav: ‘Flava Flav has problems of his own. I can’t do nothing for you, man.'”
His feedback mark one of the crucial high-profile rejections but of the Trump administration’s efforts to deport migrants, underneath menace of tariffs and visa restrictions for international locations that refuse. The U.S. authorities has not formally confirmed it’s urgent African nations to just accept third-country nationals.
Earlier this month, the U.S. authorities deported 8 males to South Sudan. The deportees, from varied international locations — together with Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Cuba and Mexico – had been transferred from the U.S. to a navy base in Djibouti in East Africa in Might, and had been flown to South Sudan over the weekend after the U.S. Supreme Court docket cleared the best way for his or her elimination.
In Might Rwandan’s Overseas Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe advised Rwandan state TV that his authorities was in “early talks” with Washington concerning taking in third-country nationals deported from the U.S. The U.S. has additionally reportedly approached at the very least three different African nations — Benin, Eswatini, and Libya— to just accept deported migrants – one thing that Libya’s UN backed authorities within the west and the navy authorities in that controls the east denied.
This week, the State Division imposed main visa restrictions on residents from Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Cameroon. Almost all non-immigrant and non-diplomatic visas issued to residents of these international locations will now be legitimate for simply three months and for a single entry — a part of what the U.S. calls a “global reciprocity realignment.”
The transfer has drawn criticism in Nigeria, the place officers deny the restrictions are reciprocal and argue they’re as a substitute linked to the nation’s refusal to adjust to U.S. migration calls for.
“It will be difficult for a country like Nigeria to accept Venezuelan prisoners into Nigeria,” mentioned Tuggar. “We have enough problems of our own. We cannot accept Venezuelan deportees to Nigeria, for crying out loud.”
The Nigerian authorities says it’s participating with U.S. officers to strike new offers involving important minerals, oil, and fuel — however is not going to negotiate away its sovereignty. “We will continue to stand for our national interest,” mentioned Tuggar.
Nigeria’s stance follows reporting by The Wall Road Journal that the Trump administration urged 5 African presidents — who met with Trump on the White Home earlier this week — to just accept deportees whose residence international locations refuse to take them again.
The summit, formally targeted on commerce, included the presidents of Liberia, Senegal, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, and Mauritania. However in his opening remarks, President Trump referenced migration coverage: “I hope we can bring down the high rates of people overstaying visas, and also make progress on the safe third-country agreements,” he mentioned.
Trump additionally sparked backlash on the assembly after praising Liberia’s president Joseph Boakai for talking “such good English” — regardless of English being Liberia’s official language. The nation was based by previously enslaved folks from the U.S. within the nineteenth century.
