President re-considers funding 119 Nigerian embassies

chika ebuzor

September 9, 2015 4:37 AM

Mr. President asked the Ministry to be realistic in terms of our representation abroad. We have 119 missions.

In a bid to save cost for the country, President Buhari has ordered that a committee be set up, to ascertain the viability of funding 119 foreign missions.

This was disclosed to newsmen, by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Paul Lolo.

Read

Lolo said “The specific directive that he has given is that a committee be formed to look at the whole issue of our representation abroad, the size and the number of missions on whether or not the number should remain the same or we do something about those numbers.”

Read

Adding that “Mr. President asked the Ministry to be realistic in terms of our representation abroad. We have 119 missions. He asked the questions on whether we need to have that number or we rationalised based on our capacity. Right now, the economy is looking down. We are trying to revive and revamp.”

“We also talked about the state of our embassies abroad. All of these in the context of what Nigeria aspires to be at home, in the sub-region, on the continent and around the globe. It is a function of interest and capacity. I believe what the President was saying to us is that we should cut our coat according to our material and not according to our size,” Lolo said.

chika ebuzor