Approve additional consulate office in UK, US, Canada, Reps tell FG

ABUJA, Nigeria  —  The House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs has called on the Federal Government to approve the immediate opening of new consulates in the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and Canada.

The representatives believed that the move would better serve the needs of Nigerians in the Diaspora.

The call was made by the Committee and member representing Oriade/Obokun Federal Constituency, Osun State, Oluwole Oke.

He said, “To meet the needs of Nigerians in the Diaspora, there is an urgent need to open new consulates in Manchester, United Kingdom; Calgary/Edmonton in Alberta Province in Canada; Houston, Texas; and San Francisco, United States of America.

“We will make provision in the 2025 appropriations for these proposed consulates to commence operations,” he added.

Oke promised, on behalf of the committee, to contact the relevant agencies to facilitate the proposal.

“I will reach out to the Minister of Interior, the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Immigration Service, and the National Intelligence Agency to deploy their personnel to these proposed consulates,” he pledged.

Oke said, “Nigerians suffer a lot and spend so much on consular-related services with the current arrangements where we only have consular services in Washington DC, New York, Atlanta in the entire 53 states of the USA and Ottawa only in the whole of Canada.

“Citizens fly for seven hours to get consular services. We owe our citizens a duty of care and we shall discharge it,” he stated.