On Friday, Foreign Minister Yusuf Tagger said Nigeria would not succumb to pressure him to accept Venezuelans deported by US President Donald Trump.
Taggar said Trump is trying to strengthen African countries.
“You also need to keep in mind that the US is putting considerable pressure on African countries to accept that Venezuelans will be deported from the US.
“It will be difficult for a country like Nigeria to accept Venezuelan prisoners into Nigeria. We have enough problems ourselves,” the Foreign Minister said. “To be honest, I don't think Nigeria is in a position to cooperate with the issue of accepting deportees in Venezuela.”
Why is Trump putting pressure on Nigeria to accept immigrants?
One reason Trump uses coarser tactics in Nigeria is his membership in the BRICS+ political and economic bloc.
With the addition of South Africa in 2010, created by Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) in 2006, the BRICS club has come to include developing countries such as Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), accounting for around 37% of the global economic output.
Nigeria joined 11 BRICS+ BLOCs in January, and President Bola Tinubu attended the summit from July 6-7, 2025.
When the summit concluded, Trump announced that the US would slap 10% punitive tariffs on imports from BRICS+ countries.
However, Tuggar said it is unclear whether recent US measures have a direct connection to Nigeria's participation in the summit.
What other African countries has Trump tried to put pressure on?
Nigerian President Tinubu was not among the African leaders invited to the White House on Wednesday when Trump welcomed presidents of Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania and Senegal.
Liberian and US sources reported that Trump used the opportunity to ask them to bring in migrants from third countries, each of whom had been deported from the US.
This week's Wall Street Journal reported that the US State Department sent documents to African leaders invited to Wednesday's White House event, calling for third-country citizens to agree to a “dignified, safe and timely relocation from the United States.”
Trump has repeatedly called for immigrants to be successful at times and unable to send homes to third countries instead.
Trump's “mutual” visa restrictions for Nigerians
Speaking of US pressure campaigns, Taggar said: “I think it is unfair to insist that Nigeria accepts 300 Venezuelan decoyties.
The Foreign Minister didn't expand what might come next, but he has addressed one of the other tools the Trump administration has adopted as a way to harness the US advantage, claiming that new visa policies are mutually exclusive.
Nigeria's US mission announced this week an update to its non-immigration visa policy for Nigerians.
Tuggar said the only change Nigeria has made is that 90 days of visas were issued electronically, not on arrival, like in the US. The change is intended to streamline the process and make it more efficient, he said.
Tuggar added:
“Our visas aren't saying that all Americans are only given a 90-day visa or three months. We give them to Americans… there are a lot of Americans who have these long-term visas…it's not based on reciprocity.”
Edited by: Alex Berry
