The Federal Government has expressed its Commitment to work with other countries in eradicating statelessness by the year 2024.
Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola who disclosed this in Abuja at the official launch of the National Action Plan to end Statelessness in Nigerian and the Inauguration of members of the high level steering committee said eradicating the menace will go a long way in realizing the Sustainable Development Goals in the context of Nigeria Developmental agenda.
He said Statelessness which is said to be a global phenomenon where a person is not recognized as a national of any state under the operation of it’s law has denied about 4.3 million persons nationality globally.
The Minister noted that Persons faced with issues of Statelessness are vulnerable to hardship, discrimination as they are denied rights to enjoying privileges of education, employment, health facilities, processing of travel documents among others.
He further pointed out that stateless persons that are not concerned with high level of patriotism are exposed to dangers which may invariably lead to criminality adding that Nigerians must invest in National peace in order to prevent Statelessness which is mostly caused by conflicts, lack of birth registration, refugees, migrants.
The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, Hajiya Sadiya Farouq while explaining that a persons Nationality confirms legal right and protection said the National Action Plan will help prevent childhood statelessness particularly in birth registrations by addressing gender and other forms of discriminations.
Earlier, the Country Representative to Nigeria, United Nations High Commission for Refugees, Chansa Kapaya said about 1million stateless persons live in the West African Sub region noting that hands must be on deck to eradicate the issue of stateless.
The development partner however, stressed that Statelessness should not be tolerated inline with the UNHCR #ibelong campaign, supported by the Global Action Plan 2014-2024 aimed at preventing new cases from occuring.
