By MacDonald Dzirutwe
LAGOS (Reuters) -Nigeria’s foreign minister said the United States was pressuring African countries to accept Venezuelan deportees, some straight out of prison, but Africa’s most populous country could not accommodate them due to its own problems.
President Donald Trump’s administration this week asked five African presidents visiting the White House to take in migrants from other countries when deported by the U.S., two officials familiar with the discussions told Reuters.
Yusuf Tuggar, the Nigerian foreign minister, told local Channels TV late on Thursday that Nigeria could not accept that.
“You have to also bear in mind that the U.S. is mounting considerable pressure on African countries to accept Venezuelans to be deported from the U.S., some straight out of prison,” he said from Brazil where he was at a BRICS summit.
“It will be difficult for a country like Nigeria to accept Venezuelan prisoners into Nigeria. We have enough problems of our own,” noting his nation’s 230 million strong population.
The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Since returning to office in January, Trump has been pressing to speed up deportations, including by sending migrants to third countries when there are problems or delays over sending them to their home nations.
This week, he hosted the presidents of Liberia, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Gabon at the White House. According to a U.S. and a Liberian official, he presented the plan for African countries to take in migrants from other countries when they are deported by the U.S.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that an internal State Department document sent to the African governments before the meeting called on them to agree to the “dignified, safe, and timely transfer from the United States” of third country nationals.
(Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe, Additional reporting by Jeff Mason in Washington, Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
