News
News Published: 4 June 2021
EASO publishes a COI report: Nigeria – security situation
Today, the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) published a Country of Origin Information (COI) report titled Nigeria: security situation.
After the peak of some 47 000 applications for international protection in 2016, Nigerians have sought asylum in the EU+ less frequently: around 23 000 in 2018-2019 and just above 13 000 in 2020. So far in 2021 (January-March), Nigerians lodged almost 3 700 applications in the EU+. Since 2018, there has been a gradual increase in the share of repeated applications in the same reporting country. In the first three months of 2021, more than each third Nigerian application in the EU+ was lodged repeatedly. In the last six months (October 2020 – March 2021), the number of first instance decisions increased by about a quarter compared to the preceding six months. In the same period, the EU+ recognition rate for Nigerians was 12 %, stable compared to the preceding half a year. At the end of March 2021, some 14 400 Nigerian applications were pending at first instance. More than two thirds of them were awaiting a decision for longer than six months.
This report is part of a series of two COI reports on Nigeria produced in 2021. The reports provide information relevant for international protection status determination for Nigerian applicants, and in particular for use in updating EASO's country guidance development on Nigeria.
The first report in EASO's 2021 production on Nigeria is EASO COI Report: Nigeria: Trafficking in Human Beings, was published in April 2021.
The second report, EASO COI Report: Nigeria – Security situation, is an update and expansion of the EASO COI report Nigeria Security situation 2018. The report is divided into two parts. The first part presents an overview of the armed conflicts in Nigeria, and information on the main actors in the conflict, their organisation structures, aims and targets. It goes on to describe the security trends in different parts of Nigeria during 2020 and the first four months of 2021, with a focus on the nature of the violence and impact on civilians. The chapter also discusses the ability of the Nigerian federal state to secure law and order and ends with a description of issues of displacement and return.
The second part provides a description of the security situation of all 37 states of Nigeria. Each chapter includes a brief description of the state, background conflict dynamics and armed actors present in the area, recent security trends, including information on security incidents and fatalities, security trends, armed confrontations, the impact on the population such as civilian infrastructure and information on displacement and return.
The report was co-drafted by Stephanie Huber, Founder and Director of the Asylum Research Centre (ARC), and EASO's COI Sector, in accordance with the EASO COI Report Methodology. The report was reviewed by The Netherlands, Ministry of Justice and Security, Office for Country Information and Language Analysis, by Austria, Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum, Country of Origin Information Department (B/III), Africa Desk, and by the Austrian Centre for Country of Origin and Asylum Research and Documentation (ACCORD), together with EASO.