The United Kingdom has seen a massive number of Nigerian asylum seekers over the past 14 years, with the Home Office recording 22,619 applications from 2010 to 2024.
Pan-Atlantic Kompass reports that this figure has positioned Nigeria as the 11th highest country of origin for asylum claims in the UK during the period in review.
The Home Office’s year-end Asylum and Resettlement statistics revealed a notable uptick in Nigerian asylum seekers, particularly in 2024.
In 2024 alone, 2,841 Nigerian asylum seekers applied, nearly double the 1,462 applications recorded in 2023.
This spike was reflected in the overall spike in the UK’s overall asylum applications, reaching 108,138 in 2024, a 378% increase from 2010 and the highest since records began in 1979.
Nigerian asylum seekers are not alone in seeking asylum in the UK. The Home Office data shows that Iran sits at the top of the chart with 75,737. Pakistan comes second with 57,621 applications in the year under review.
Afghanistan trailed with 54,363 asylum applications between 2010 and 2024. In 2024 alone, 8,508 Afghans sought refuge in the UK.
Others are Albania (50,944), Iraq (45,711), Eritrea (37,687), Syria (34,997) and Bangladesh (31,744). Asylum seekers from Bangladesh rose from 5,097 in 2023 to 7,225 in 2024. The surge coincided with the ousting of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Sudan and India round out the top ten with 30,897 and 30,179, respectively.
Nigeria’s 22,619 filings sit just ahead of Sri Lanka’s 22,059 and above Vietnam, China and Turkey. Brazil, Kuwait, Yemen, Colombia and Jordan were at the lower end of the list, each contributing fewer than 6,500 claims.
This also comes as the UK’s asylum system is facing mounting pressure, with 41,987 appeals pending in tribunal courts by the end of 2024, a nearly 500% increase from 7,173 in 2023, according to the Refugee Council.
This development comes after official data from the Refugee Protection Division (RPD) of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) revealed that no fewer than 13,171 Nigerians seeking refugee protection between January 2013 and December 2024 have been denied asylum.
According to the official data, Nigeria is among the top five countries with the highest number of rejected asylum claims over the past decade.
The breakdown of the data revealed that Canada rejected 127 Nigerian applications in 2013, 241 in 2014, and 248 in 2015 under a revamped refugee determination system that took effect in December 2012.
The numbers escalated in subsequent years; 476 in 2016, 917 in 2017, and a sharp rise to 1,777 in 2018.
The peak came in 2019, with 3,951 Nigerian asylum seekers denied. More recently, rejections stood at 1,770 in 2020, 1,686 in 2021, 728 in 2022, 439 in 2023, and 811 in 2024.
