PUNCH
No fewer than 13,171 Nigerians who applied for refugee protection from January 2013 to December 2024 were turned down by Canadian government, Sunday Punch reports.
This includes 811 Nigerians rejected in 2024.
Official data from the Refugee Protection Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada placed Nigeria among the top five countries with the most rejected claims. It ranked 5th.
Others are Mexico with 2,954 rejections, India (1,688), Haiti (982) and Colombia (723).
The IMRB grants refugee protection in Canada if the RPD satisfactorily confirms that an applicant or claimant meets the United Nations definition of a Convention refugee, “which has been incorporated into Canadian law, or that the applicant is a person in need of protection.”
The 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees defines refugees as persons who have a substantiated fear of persecution because of their race, nationality, religion, political ideology or membership in a particular social group.
Such social groups can include sexual orientation, gender identity, being a woman and persons living with HIV/AIDS.
[…] The breakdown of the rejections since 2013 showed that 127, 241 and 248 Nigerians were denied protection in 2013, 2014 and 2015, respectively, under the new system for determining refugee protection claims made in Canada—which took effect on December 15, 2012.
476, 917 and 1,777 claims were rejected in 2016, 2017 and 2018 respectively.
2019 saw the highest number of rejected claims, with 3,951 Nigerian applicants turned down. Meanwhile, 1,770, 1,686, 728, 439 and 811 persons were denied protection in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024, respectively.
Nevertheless, 10,580 Nigerians were granted refugee status within the decade under review, with at least 2,230 from January to December 2024.
Official data placed Nigeria among the top 10 countries with the most claims accepted. It ranked 8th on the list.