THE United States, US, government of President Donald Trump insulted Nigerians by seeking to offload its responsibilities on Venezuelan immigrants on them.
The US in regarding the Venezuelan immigrants as some piece of shit, decided to throw them down Nigeria, a country Trump once referred to as a “shit hole”.
The schizophrenic attitude of Trump to immigrants appears like someone trying to bury his past and pretend it does not exist. Mr Trump’s mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, was an immigrant Scot who boarded a steamship in 1930 with just $50 in her pocket. His father, Frederick Trump, was an immigrant from Kallstadt, Germany, who migrated to the US in 1885. His wife, Melania Knauss Trump, who was born Melanija Knavs, was a Slovanian from the old Yugoslavia who migrated to the US in 1996. So, like President Barack Obama whose father migrated from Kenya, Trump has no reason to be so stridently anti-migrant, not to talk of treating them like dirt.
For me, as a Nigerian, I do not see what can be more disrespectful than for the Trump administration to decide that my country should be the dumping ground for its rejects.
More insulting is the fact that countries picked for dumping the hapless Venezuelans are mainly African. Why did the US not pick its neighbour Canada, trusted ally, the United Kingdom or Western cousins like Germany and Italy? Why did it not choose Belgium the headquarters of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO, to dump the Venezuelans?
If US needed a place to dump humans, why not European countries like Montenegro, Malta and Iceland with small populations? Why did it not go to the humanitarian country like the Vatican City?
Seriously, I do not mean US immigrants should be sent to any of these countries or any country for that; it is merely to show that there are racial underpinnings and lack of respect in the US choice of countries.
Obviously, the US has a preference for countries it thinks it can bully or pay off. For instance, when on July 9, 2025, he invited leaders of five African countries: Liberia, Senegal, Mauritania, Gabon and Guinea-Bissau to the White House, he also sent them a memo to take in immigrants he is expelling. The memo called on the African Presidents to agree to the “dignified, safe, and timely transfer from the United States” of its rejected immigrants from third countries.
In his opening remarks when he met the five African leaders, Trump made his intentions clear. He told them: “I hope we can bring down the high rates of people overstaying visas, and also make progress on the safe, third-country agreements.”
Trump had also reportedly asked four other African countries: Benin, Eswatini, Libya and Rwanda to take immigrants the US is expelling.
The choice of Rwanda can be quite deliberate as it has demonstrated in the past that it is a cheap lay for countries that can pay for its services to take in and keep their rejected immigrants. On April 14, 2022, Rwanda, for the sum of $146 million, signed a so-called “asylum partnership agreement” with Britain to take in thousands of rejected immigrants for the United Kingdom.
The US had obviously taken advantage of the conflicts in South Sudan to dump eight migrants from Myanmar, Cuba, South Sudan, Mexico, Laos and Vietnam.
However, Nigeria, in a salutary manner, rejected the US proposal and pressures. Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Yusuf Tuggar, said: “It will be unfair for Nigeria to accept 300 Venezuelan deportees.”
He told the media: “You have to also bear in mind that the US is mounting considerable pressure on African countries to accept Venezuelans to be deported from the US, some straight out of prison.”
He added: “It will be difficult for a country like Nigeria to accept Venezuelan prisoners into Nigeria. We have enough problems of our own, we cannot accept Venezuelan deportees to Nigeria, for crying out loud.”
The US has apparently begun to react to Nigeria. On July 8, 2025, it reduced nearly all the non-immigrant and non-diplomatic visas issued to Nigerians. These included two-five-year long term multiple visa for Nigerians, cutting them to a single-entry visa of three months.
The US Department of State then uttered the jargon that its actions, which also affected Ethiopia and Cameroun, were part of a “global reciprocity realignment”.
Nigeria is also among the countries being threatened with higher tariffs. I suspect that the sulking American government would still explore ways to strike Nigeria.
Beyond Nigeria, the forced deportations US is carrying out are inhuman and arbitrary as people are simply offloaded at places they have never been. They are being taken to territories they have no relatives or friends and whose culture they may not understand. It would be quite traumatic for the victims as they would be aliens and may not have a right to become citizens. There are no jobs waiting for them nor is there accommodation. Also, their educational qualifications may not be recognised by their host countries.
It is equally not clear if such deportees would have freedom of movement. For instance, when Australia from 2013 sent over 2,000 immigrants to Papua New Guinea, they were simply detained on Manus Island. Despite the fact that these immigrants had no criminal records, they were detained, some for eight years.
What is more tragic about the Venezuelans the US wants to dump in Africa is that they are likely to be part of people the US had enticed to sabotage their country, and then seek refuge in America. Some might have virtually trekked across countries like Mexico to seek refuge in US.
It is also instructive that the Venezuelan government of President Nicolas Maduro has not rejected the Venezuelan deportees. Angered by US deportation of its citizens to third countries like El Salvador, the Venezuelan authorities continue to protest against the US sending its citizens to third countries. It has also, for months now, provided free flights for deported Venezuelans with assurance of their fundamental human rights being respected.
In March 2025, the President of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Jorge Rodriguez, issued a statement declaring that: “Migrating isn’t a crime, and we won’t rest until everyone who wants to return, is back …” However, the US prefers sending Venezuelans to third countries mainly because it wants to avoid recognising the Maduro government.
The Tinubu administration has obviously taken a popular step by rejecting the offloading of Venezuelan immigrants on Nigeria. However, its withdrawal of our ambassadors across the world for about two years now leaves the country like a bird flying with one wing. Indeed, under this government, we might be flying blind in the global space.