The Federal Government has approved the closure of five foreign missions and embassies, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Geoffrey Onyeama said.

Onyeama told journalists in Abuja on Thursday that the process for closure was underway and was also subject to the approval of the president.

He did not name the affected embassies or missions.

“We do not want to indicate the embassies that will be closed yet because we are in the process of submitting the proposals, the cost analysis and also the political analysis we did to the president.

“When he sees that, he may or may not want to close some, so we have not yet reached the stage of closing some,” he said.

The minister said closing missions abroad was “extremely expensive”.

“The expense, costs of closing embassies is so high and prohibitive but in the long run it will more economical.”

Onyeama said the reduction of Nigeria’s foreign missions remains on the agenda of the Muhammadu Buhari administration.

Buhari had said at the inception of his administration that the Federal Government would reduce the number of missions to save cost.

Nigeria currently has 119 foreign missions.

Onyeama said: “The government is following up on that and we have sort of pre­pared the roadmap; we have started the implementation of that and made also recom­mendations in that context.

NAN