AT least 11,040 Nigerians applied for asylum in Ireland between 2013 and 2025, according to official data contained in reports reviewed by Sunday PUNCH.
The figures, News Point Nigeria reports, were drawn from 13 editions of the Asylum Information Database’s Ireland country reports published between 2013 and 2025 by the Irish Refugee Council for the AIDA project, coordinated by the European Council on Refugees and Exiles. The reports were built on statistics from Ireland’s International Protection Office, its predecessor, the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner, and Eurostat.
A review of the reports showed that a full-year figure for 2014 was not available, while the 2015 figure covered only January to July. Despite the gaps, the data showed considerable variations in the number of Nigerian asylum applicants over the period.
A year-on-year breakdown showed that there were 130 Nigerian applicants in 2013, 85 in the first seven months of 2015, 175 in 2016, 185 in 2017, 251 in 2018, 386 in 2019, 208 in 2020 and 451 in 2021.
The number surged to 1,108 in 2022 and increased further to 2,084 in 2023. It nearly doubled to 4,037 in 2024 before dropping to 1,940 in 2025.
Nigeria topped Ireland’s asylum applicant table in 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024. The country ranked second behind Zimbabwe in 2019 and second behind Somalia in 2025.
The 2024 AIDA update noted that Nigeria’s 4,037 applicants that year represented 21.7 per cent of all asylum applicants, while the 2025 update recorded the 1,940 Nigerian applicants as 14.75 per cent of the total for that year.
Among African nationalities, Nigeria was followed by Somalia, which recorded at least 6,514 applicants across the years it featured in the published rankings; Zimbabwe, with at least 4,063; Algeria, with at least 3,397; and South Africa, with at least 1,569.
Combined, the five African nationalities accounted for at least 26,583 applications.
However, the AIDA reports list only the top five to 10 nationalities each year, with smaller caseloads grouped under the category “others.”
Overall, Ireland received at least 80,656 asylum applications across the years for which full-year figures were available in the reviewed reports — 2013 and 2015 to 2025 — with Nigerians accounting for at least 13.69 per cent of all applicants.
Through the decade, asylum applications in Ireland rose from below 1,000 a year in the early 2010s to 3,276 applications in 2015, before falling to 2,244 in 2016.
Ireland’s Department of Justice Immigration Service attributed the decline almost exclusively to a reduction in applications from Pakistani and Bangladeshi nationals.
The overall number of applicants subsequently rose to 4,781 by 2019, before dropping to 1,566 during the pandemic year of 2020.
Applications then surged to 13,651 in 2022 and reached a peak of 18,560 in 2024, before declining to 13,159 in 2025.
Nigerians Faced High Rejection Rates
On the outcomes of applications, Nigerian applicants faced rejection rates of 96.7 per cent in 2012, 96 per cent in 2013, 97.1 per cent in 2016 and 94.4 per cent in 2018.
However, the high rejection rates fell significantly to 14.3 per cent in 2021, with 65.7 per cent of decided cases instead granted humanitarian permission to remain rather than full refugee status.
Detailed decision breakdowns by nationality were not published for 2019, 2022, 2023 and 2024.
According to the AIDA Ireland reports for the years reviewed, “Since 2003, applications from Nigerian nationals have also been prioritised and therefore subjected to accelerated procedures.”
The reports stated that the Court of Justice of the European Union upheld the policy as lawful in a case known as HID and BA, after the matter was referred by the Irish High Court. Appeals in such prioritised cases, the reports said, are decided on paper without an oral hearing.
With effect from April 23, 2024, the International Protection Office began “prioritising and accelerating the processing of applications from the country of origin with the highest number of applications in a given period.”
The 2024 AIDA update stated that “from April 2024, applications from Nigerian nationals were prioritised” on that basis.
The scheme was expanded in July 2024 to cover the second-highest nationality, Jordan, and remained in force for Nigerian and Jordanian applicants as of the 2025 update.
Throughout 2025, 4,747 cases were processed under the accelerated procedure, with Nigeria again topping the list.
Of the 5,040 decisions issued under the scheme in 2025, 4,712, representing roughly 93.5 per cent, were rejected on the merits.
Ireland’s Department of Justice also stated that 6,255 Nigerians were awaiting decisions on their asylum claims in 2025, more than twice the 2,819 recorded the previous year.