Nigeria and EU conclude migrant readmission agreement after ten years
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on Leadership
Nigeria and the European Union have completed negotiations on an agreement to readmit Nigerians with no right to stay in the EU, after nearly ten years of talks. According to Nigeria’s Ministry of Interior, the text will strengthen border security, identity verification and the fight against trafficking. Minister Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo announced it to European Commissioner Magnus Brunner.
Nigeria and the European Union have concluded negotiations on a readmission agreement, which facilitates the return of Nigerians with no right to stay in EU countries, after nearly ten years of talks. The announcement was in a statement by Mary Ali, spokesperson for Nigeria’s Ministry of Interior.
Interior Minister Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo said this on Tuesday at a meeting with the European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration, Magnus Brunner. The agreement is to be formally signed once it is finalised. According to the statement, it will strengthen cooperation on border security, identity verification, and the fight against human trafficking and migrant smuggling.
Tunji-Ojo reaffirmed the federal government’s commitment to honouring the agreement and said Nigeria would not encourage irregular migration. He presented the text as a framework for more orderly and dignified migration management, and not only as a returns mechanism.
The minister said more than 17 million migration records have been transferred into an integrated system, to speed up the identification of returnees. The system is meant to establish the nationality of three categories of Nigerians: those with valid documents, those who have lost or destroyed their papers, and those who left with no identity document at all.
