Nigeria To Reduce Foreign Missions As President Buhari Orders Review

President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered a review of Nigeria’s foreign missions with the aim of reducing them to increase efficiency. A presidential Committee will therefore be formed to carry out a holistic exercise on the foreign missions, reports have said.

At the moment, the country has a total 119 foreign missions which president Buhari said would be too expensive to maintain due to the economic downturn.

“Let’s keep only what we can manage. We can’t afford much for now. There’s no point pretending,” the president said after he was briefed on the activities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by the Permanent Secretary, Ambassador Bulus Lolo and other officials of the Ministry.

The President also called for the record of former government officials and other persons who were still in possession of diplomatic and official passports after leaving office, saying that his administration will take necessary action against them.

“Something has to be done so that we can get back our respectability as a country. Some people carry official passports and get involved in all sorts of negative acts. We need to do something about it,” President Buhari said.

Speaking earlier, Ambassador Lolo told President Buhari that the challenges facing the Ministry included the absence of a Foreign Service Commission, poor funding of foreign missions, policy inconsistencies and training deficiencies, among others.