Nigerian

Nigerians in Libya, about 32,000 people in 2026, are mostly young people from southern Nigeria, above all Edo and Delta states, who came on the Sahara route through Niger hoping to cross the Mediterranean to Italy and are stuck working in Libya's cities to pay their way. Unlike most sub-Saharan migrants in Libya, many are Christians: Pentecostal and Catholic Nigerians fill the migrant congregations of Tripoli and Benghazi, and Amnesty International has documented Nigerians abducted and abused for their faith. Women and girls among them are the main victims of the trafficking networks that hold migrants in 'connection houses' for forced prostitution. Nigeria's embassy and the International Organization for Migration fly hundreds home every year from Libya's detention centres.

Nigerians in Saudi Arabia are unlike most African communities there: about 80,000 people, as many women as men, and many of them families who have lived near the holy cities for generations. Most are Hausa, Fulani and Kanuri Muslims from northern Nigeria, descendants or successors of the pilgrims who for centuries walked and later flew to Mecca and stayed, working as traders, artisans, cleaners and domestic workers; others are doctors, engineers and teachers recruited for their skills. Many were born in the kingdom without Saudi papers, and those who overstay Hajj or Umrah visas live in poor quarters of Mecca and Jeddah, facing detention and deportation. Hausa is the common language of most, though children who grow up in the Hejaz speak Arabic first.

Nigerians in Türkiye are one of the largest communities from sub-Saharan Africa, several thousand traders, students, teachers and workers centred on Istanbul, where Nigerians call the city 'the Lagos of Türkiye'. Most came after 2000, drawn by visas easier to obtain than Europe's, daily flights to Lagos and Abuja, Turkish university scholarships and Istanbul's wholesale markets, from which they ship clothing, shoes, textiles, furniture and building materials home through African-run cargo firms in Fatih. A 'Little Nigeria' of shops, restaurants and caterers has grown in the outer district of Esenyurt. They are Christians and Muslims in roughly the proportions of southern Nigeria, and Christians meet in African-led Pentecostal fellowships, many of them in rented halls and homes, that also help members through trouble with papers and work.

Nigerians in the United Arab Emirates, roughly 50,000 to 100,000 people, are traders, professionals, students and service workers drawn from Africa's most populous country. Igbo merchants from Nigeria's south-east built a wholesale trade in Dubai's Deira district, shipping electronics, textiles, phones and auto parts to the markets of Lagos and Onitsha, while Yoruba, Edo and northern Hausa Nigerians work in finance, aviation, hospitality and security. Most are Pentecostal, Catholic or Anglican Christians who fill rented halls in the church compounds of Dubai and Sharjah, alongside a large Muslim minority from the north and south-west. The community shrank when the Emirates stopped issuing visas to Nigerians from 2022 to 2024, and Afrobeats stars such as Burna Boy, Davido and Rema now headline Dubai's arenas.