The Federal
Government has approved the closure of five foreign missions and embassies,
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Geoffrey Onyeama said.
Onyeama told
newsmen in Abuja on Thursday.
The
minister, who did not mention the embassies or missions, said the process for
closure was underway and was also subject to the approval of the president.
“We do not want
to indicate the embassies that will be closed yet because we are in the process
of submitting the proposals, the cost analysis and also the political analysis
we did to the president.
“When he
sees that, he may or may not want to close some, so we have not yet reached the
stage of closing some,” he said.
The minister
also reiterated that the closing missions abroad were “extremely expensive”.
“The
expense, costs of closing embassies is so high and prohibitive but in the long
run it will more economical.”
The
minister, on April 10, told NAN the closure of Nigerian missions abroad is
inevitable.
He admitted
that it is expensive to close a country’s embassy but quickly added that in
the long run the policy will be beneficial to Nigerians.
Onyeama stressed
that the reduction of Nigeria’s foreign missions remains on the agenda of the
Muhammadu Buhari administration.
Buhari had
said at the inception of his administration that the Federal Government will
reduce the number of missions to save cost.
Nigeria
currently has 119 foreign missions.
According to Saharareporters, Onyeama
said: “The government is following up on that and we have sort of prepared the
roadmap; we have started the implementation of that and made also
recommendations in that context.
“Paradoxically,
closing missions is extremely expensive. At first sight it seems obvious that
you close it you are saving cost but you will actually find that the cost of
closing is almost prohibitive.
“But in the
long run it will be cheaper, but in the immediate and short term it is
expensive but we have started the process,” he said.
0 Comments