UK tops list of registered Nigerians in diaspora – Commission

The United Kingdom tops the list of registered Nigerians in Diaspora, according to the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission.

On June 29, 2021, NiDCOM launched its Data Mapping and Registry Portal in Abuja, in a bid to galvanise holistic and realistic data of Nigerians in the Diaspora.

According to the data made available to our correspondent on Wednesday, Diasporas from 28 countries have so far registered on the portal as of the time of filing this report.

Although the commission did not provide a figure for the total number of registered diasporas, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs put Nigeria’s Diaspora population at 1.7 million in 2020.

The breakdown of the data provided by NiDCOM showed that registered Nigerians in the UK were at 22.5 per cent, followed by the United States of America at 21.4 per cent; and the United Arab Emirates at 5.4 per cent registered Diasporas.

Others include Qatar, 4.8 per cent; Canada, 4.4 per cent; South Africa, 4.0 per cent; Germany, 2.5 per cent; Saudi Arabia, 2.3 per cent; Italy, 2.3 per cent; Gnana, 1.5 per cent; Malaysia, 1.1 per cent; France, 0.9 per cent; Spain, 0.9 per cent; and Uganda, 0.7 per cent.

The data also showed that Australia had 0.7 per cent; China, 0.7 per cent; the Benin Republic, 0.7 per cent; Sierra Leone, 0.7 per cent; Turkey, 0.7 per cent; Switzerland; 0.7 per cent; Russia, 0.6 per cent; Philippines, 0.6 per cent; Niger Republic, 0.6 per cent; Ireland, 0.6 per cent; Ukraine with 0.5 per cent; and Kyrgyzstan, 0.1 per cent.

Speaking on the low registration, the NiDCOM’s Head of Technology Transfer Innovation, Abdulrahman Terab, said “Most Diasporas are just gaining confidence in the country. We try as much as possible that the Diasporas register online whenever we have programmes, events, or activities.”

(Punch)