The federal government said Thursday that about 159 Nigerians renounced their citizenship in 2022.
This was Minister of Interior Mr Rauf Aregbesola at the weekly media briefing organised by the Presidential Communications Team in Abuja.
The minister said a total of 309 Nigerians renounced their citizenship between 2006 and 2022.
He said a total of 350 applications for citizenship by naturalization are currently being processed by the ministry.
He said over 70 citizens of South Korea, Egypt, Siri Lanka and other countries were deported on the orders of the Ministry of Interior in 2022.
The minister said the number of Nigerians leaving the country has placed pressures on the issuance of Nigerian passports.
He said the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has issued a total of 1.7 million passports in 2023, the highest ever produced in the history of the country.
According to the minister, the federal government has embarked on reformation, including digitising the passport issuing process.
He said the ministry is working to resolve issues with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on arrangements to ease passport issuance for Nigerians in the diaspora.
“Temporary electronic passports are being issued in cases of emergency, for one way trip only, to replace emergency travel certificates with three months validity,” he said.
The minister said the Federal Fire Service saved a total of N25.22 trillion worth of property in the last eight years while property worth N3.18 trillion were destroyed during the period under review.
“We have saved 2,000 lives while 366 lives were lost to fire from 2015 to date,” he said.
On expatriate quota abuse, the said the minister said the federal government is working on reducing expatriate quota from 10 to seven years and limiting it to only jobs on critical list that cannot be performed by Nigerians.
“We have created online linkages for expatriates quota and ensured that Nigerian graduates are employed to understudy the expatriates, for smooth succession,” he said.
The minster said the Nigeria Correctional Service is constructing a world-class facility in Kano that would accommodate about 3,000 inmates.
He said the Nigeria Correctional Service is also training officers on arms handling to deal with issues of incessant attacks on its facilities.
“We are now mandating officers to carry arms to respond appropriately to those who may want to violate facilitates in the Nigeria Correctional Service,” he said.
The minister said the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps would recruit 3,000 personnel this year and train about 10,117 personnel.
He said the NSCDC has been working hard to deal with the incessant oil theft in the Niger Delta.
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