Nigeria passport has further lost its integrity, ranking worse than ever under President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime.
Henley and Partners, a London based global citizenship and residence advisory firm, in its new passport index report ranked Nigeria’s passport 101 out of 199 countries, dropping six places from its 2020 position.
Nigeria in the report performed worse than it did in 2020, with the country’s passport holders having access to just 46 countries visa-free.
In 2020, the country’s passport ranked 94 of 199 countries, dropping six places in the latest ranking.
The travel advisory firm compiled the index after examining the number of destinations a country’s passport holder can access without a visa.
Japan ranked first globally, closely followed by Singapore with South Korea and Germany jointly holding the third position.
Other top-ranking countries are Italy, Finland, Spain, Luxembourg, Denmark and Spain.
In Africa, the report ranked Seychelles as the country with the best performing passport in the continent despite ranking 28 globally, with Mauritius, South Africa and Botswana following closely.
Other African nations that surpassed Nigeria are Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania , Zambia and Tunisia, The Gambia, Uganda and Cape Verde Islands.
Zimbabwe, Ghana and Morocco, Sierra Leone and Mozambique, Benin, São Tomé, Príncipe and Rwanda, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Gabon, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Madagascar and Equatorial Guinea, Togo, Guinea, Niger, Mali, Comoro Islands and Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Central African Republic and Algeria, Egypt, Burundi and Angola, Liberia and Cameroon, Republic of the Congo and Djibouti also outdid Nigeria’s passport.Nigeria under the Buhari regime only topped Ethiopia, South Sudan, Eritrea and Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Libya and Somalia.
Japan maintained its number one spot on the ranking despite being in a ‘quasi-state of emergency’ as a result of the outbreak of COVID-19 that led to the postponement of the 2020 Olympics, which would now hold from July 23, 2021 to August 8, 2021.