Policy paper

Nigeria-United Kingdom Migration, Justice, and Home Affairs dialogue 2025: Joint communique

Published 9 October 2025

Preamble

Nigeria and the United Kingdom reaffirmed their shared commitment to promote security and prosperity across both nations. Our collaboration is driven by common goals to manage migration effectively, promote justice, and counter criminality in all its forms. As part of our longstanding partnership, senior officials from the Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United Kingdom Home Office jointly chaired the annual Migration, Justice, and Home Affairs dialogue on 8 October 2025 in Abuja, Nigeria.

Building on the previous dialogue hosted in London in March 2024, agreement was reached on a number of key priority issues, including continued co-operation regarding the return of individuals with no right to remain in each other’s respective territories, promoting visa programmes that support UK-Nigeria trade and investment in line with existing opportunities, and exploring joint assessments of serious and organised criminal threats.

Nigeria and the United Kingdom agreed to continue collaboration based on mutual accountability and delivery of commitments while working in a spirit of partnership.

Migration

Pillar 1: Returns, readmissions and reintegration

The United Kingdom and Nigeria acknowledged and affirmed their ongoing partnership and operational collaboration on returning individuals who have no lawful reason to remain in each other’s territories. Both parties reaffirmed their strong working relationships and reflected on the efficacy of the 2022 Migration Returns MoU in promoting the roles and responsibilities of all parties.

Returning those that no longer have a legal right to remain in the UK is a top priority for the UK government. The UK and Nigeria further agreed to continue deepening this partnership to ensure safe, dignified and respectful processes.

Pillar 2: UK Visas and Immigration

The United Kingdom updated the attending ministries, departments and agencies on the UK’s efforts to streamline visa application processes, including the introduction of e-visas, and new initiatives for key business visitors. Conversations included dialogue on UKVI offers to the Nigerian business community to simplify and streamline visit visa applications. Nigeria agreed to update on mechanisms it is developing for global business visitors to Nigeria and share experiences with the UK regarding the development of the Nigeria e-visa, in support of the UK’s development of its own e-visa initiative.

The UK committed to promoting the rights and obligations under UK law of migrants using regular pathways to enter the UK and vice versa. The UK committed to updating Nigerian stakeholders on e-visa rollout to all visa categories at the next MJHA.

Pillar 3: Visa abuse

Nigeria and the United Kingdom further expressed commitments to a timeline for developing and signing a Memorandum of Understanding on tackling organised immigration crime. This builds on work and agreements previously made at the 2024 MJHA dialogue. Both countries equally committed to working collectively to improve border and migration management capacity to reduce irregular migration flows and to enhancing UK-Nigeria prosecutorial and judicial collaboration.

The UK committed to expand the training received by officers in the Organised Immigration Crime Unit to include other officers to enable wider coverage and cascading of knowledge for enhanced responsiveness.

Serious, transnational, and organised crime

Pillar 4: Serious organised crime collaboration (SOC)

Nigeria and the United Kingdom agreed to explore a ground-breaking Nigerian Strategic SOC Threat Analysis to share criminal threat reporting, based on Nigerian commitments to developing a national SOC Strategy under the UNTOC convention.

This historic agreement would be the first of its kind in West Africa and demonstrates the solid commitment between the two countries on combating serious organised crime.

Pillar 5: UK Brighter Futures Prevent Programme

The United Kingdom formally handed over the PREVENT programme to Nigeria, to the National Counter Terrorism Centre, Office of the National Security Advisor in 2025. This is in furtherance of its commitments made during the 2024 MJHA dialogue to support the mainstreaming of the programme’s work into Nigerian Agencies’ curriculum and activities and an increase in awareness raising events in the final year of the UK’s administering of the project.

The Brighter Futures programme is an initiative that aims to divert vulnerable young people from joining organised crime groups by building their resilience and providing positive alternatives. Nigeria committed to building upon the current momentum of the programme and update on the programmes’ activities at federal and state level at the 2026 dialogue. Nigeria urged for continued support for PREVENT beyond March 2026.

Pillar 6: Extradition

The Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the UK Home Office have taken positive steps towards agreeing a stronger relationship on extradition, to create smoother and faster processes to ensure that criminals do not enjoy impunity from justice in either jurisdiction.

The UK also committed to partner with Nigeria, in the area of sharing information about prison detention conditions in Nigeria to update the UK Courts, and how assurances could be secured on the treatment of extradited persons in Nigeria. Nigeria and the UK agreed to meet quarterly and in a working forum on matters concerning extradition and criminal justice cooperation.

Pillar 7: Prisoner transfer agreement

Nigeria and the United Kingdom agreed to continue operationalising prisoner transfer. Nigeria proposed further discussions on certain provisions of the Prisoner Transfer Agreement, and called for a review of the document to ensure it has appropriate and updated references to domestic Nigerian law, e.g. the Nigerian Correctional Services Act 2019. Nigeria and the UK agreed to provide clarity on the process, timelines and expected conditions for detention of any prisoners transferred under the agreement utilising the aforementioned working forum in pillar 6.

This follows a visit last year by the UK Ministry of Justice to prisons in Nigeria, which was a key commitment of the 2024 dialogue.

Pillar 8: Commodities and human trafficking

Nigeria and the United Kingdom agreed to develop a collaboration and engagement Memorandum of Understanding to tackle human trafficking and agreed to strengthen inter-agency cooperation on commodities trafficking, particularly in the maritime domain.

The UK and Nigeria discussed the importance of maintaining and sustaining effective operational work on illicit commodities and committed to sustained dialogue between senior officials in Customs, Navy, NDLEA and the UK to establish improved ways of working.

Pillar 9: Illicit finance

The UK reaffirmed its commitment to partnerships with Nigerian authorities to tackle illicit finance, in furtherance of agreements already made at the Security and Defence Partnership Dialogue. This includes support to Nigerian stakeholders to develop a Public Private Partnership on financial crime to build cross system capabilities to take action on money laundering and terrorist financing.

Nigeria and the United Kingdom will continue to collaborate on detection, investigation, and prosecution, addressing illicit finance vulnerabilities and furthering our operational cooperation. Both countries committed to working together to lead efforts towards a more coordinated global approach to countering illicit financial flows, including reforming global financial centres, reducing the harms to development from illicit finance and improve the regulation of professionals enabling kleptocracy.

Overview

The United Kingdom and Nigeria reaffirmed their commitment to deliver agreed mutual priorities. The United Kingdom and Nigeria committed to jointly monitor progress against commitments made on an ongoing basis and prepare for the next annual Migration, Justice, and Home Affairs talks to be hosted by the UK in 2026.

The talks will include contributions and participation from all relevant ministries, departments, and agencies from Nigeria and the UK.

Annex A:

Working arrangements to deliver the Migration, Justice and Home Affairs dialogue

In addition to substantive discussions on strategic issues, the Chairs also agreed governance principles to support the smooth running of the MJHAs. The agreed terms of reference are as follows:  

• The Nigeria-UK MJHA will meet annually, and Nigeria and UK sides will each nominate a Co-Chair.

• The location for the MJHA will rotate between Nigeria and the UK.

• Planning for the MJHA dialogue will be led by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the UK Home Office. Planning will commence four months from the agreed date of the MJHA, with regular coordination meetings scheduled throughout the planning phase.

• The agenda for each MJHA dialogue will be mutually agreed in advance and will review progress actions agreed during previous MJHA discussions. The topics for discussion will only be those that fall within the remit of the Migration, Justice and Home Affairs portfolio, and respective Departments, as agreed by Nigeria and the UK.
  • A standard agenda will include discussions concerning Migration; both updates on legitimate visa routes, the return of national with no right to remain in each other’s territories and discussions about irregular migration; Justice, specifically the smooth functioning of justice co-operation mechanisms between the UK and Nigeria like extradition and Mutual Legal Assistance, and Home Affairs matters of co-operation against crime including the UK-Nigeria partnership to tackle serious and organised crime (SOC).
  • Any further agenda items proposed by either party must be communicated and agreed in advance of the planning phase (i.e. four months in advance of the MJHAs).

• The Host country for the MJHA will be responsible for issuing invitations for the dialogue, including the agreed proposed agenda, no later than two months before the agreed date.

• Invitations to the MJHA will be issued to competent ministries and agencies responsible for implementing matters discussed at the MJHA. Delegations and appointed representatives must be empowered to make decisions on behalf of their agency or Ministry and will be held to account for the implementation of any actions agreed during the MJHA dialogue.

• The MJHA Chair position will be at director / ambassador level. Co-chairs will meet at a mid-point between MJHA dialogues to ensure ongoing progress against commitments. Co-Chairs will ensure the MJHA dialogues and preceding preparations are effective, cooperative and meaningful.

• The MJHA will compliment discussions under the Security and Defence Partnership (SDP), under which cyber security and fraud will be discussed. The MJHA dialogue also sits alongside the Enhanced Trade and Investment Partnership (ETIP) as the key forum for shared objectives on growth under the UK-Nigeria Strategic Partnership. The SDP and ETIP will remain the primary decision-making fora for issues that fall under each of those areas.

• To enable frank discussions from both sides about the high-profile issues and sensitive operational matters under consideration at the MJHA dialogue, the talks and briefings will remain private and confidential. Any communications beyond the communique and / or media involvement must be agreed in advance during the planning phase.

• Nigeria and the UK will agree a brief joint communique following each annual MJHA dialogue, summarising the discussions and outlining any new agreements. If agreed by both sides, this communique will be a public document, published via their respective official government websites.

Changes to these terms of reference will be agreed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the UK Home Office.