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Your children are probably Nigerian already and nobody told you. Your foreign spouse is a different and slower problem, and the law is not symmetrical.
Most returning families are actually two immigration cases wearing one coat, and they have very different answers.
Start with the good news, because it applies to most households and people routinely do not know it.
A child born outside Nigeria to a Nigerian parent is a Nigerian citizen by birth. Either parent. Not a process you apply for and might be refused, a status the child already holds.
This matters more than it sounds, because citizenship by birth is the privileged category. It permits dual citizenship, so a Nigerian passport does not put a British, American or Canadian one at risk, and it cannot be revoked in the way registered or naturalised citizenship can.
What you do have to do is document it. Register the birth at your nearest Nigerian mission and apply for their Nigerian passports. Start this from where you are now, before you move, because doing it from abroad with a functioning postal system and a nearby consulate is markedly easier than doing it from Lagos with a queue.
A child with a Nigerian passport needs no visa, no permit, no renewals, and no annual fee. A child without one is a foreign national in their own country, and you will be managing their paperwork for as long as you stay.
If your spouse is not Nigerian, there are two routes and they are not equally available.
Citizenship by registration exists, and the residence requirement that applies to naturalisation can be waived for spouses. But read the provision carefully rather than trusting a summary, including ours. As written, Nigerian law extends registration to a foreign woman married to a Nigerian man. It does not extend the same route, in the same terms, to a foreign man married to a Nigerian woman.
That asymmetry is real, it is longstanding, it has been criticised for as long as it has existed, and it is not what most couples assume. If you are a Nigerian woman returning with a foreign husband, do not plan on the assumption that his position mirrors what your brother's wife would get. Take it to an immigration lawyer early and get a written answer about your actual situation.
Even where registration is available, expect it to be slow. Processing measured in years, not months, is normal.
Residence permits are therefore the practical route for most foreign spouses, at least initially. The Combined Expatriate Residence Permit and Aliens Card, universally called CERPAC, is the document that lets a foreign national live in Nigeria legally. It renews, it costs money each time, and it needs to be kept current.
This is where families lose months.
Requirements and processes here change more often than most government services, so verify current rules directly with the Nigeria Immigration Service rather than trusting any article, this one included, on the day you act.
Documents beget documents. Almost every application wants a birth certificate, a marriage certificate, passport photographs to a specific standard, and proof of address. Assemble that folder once, properly, with certified copies, and every subsequent application gets easier.
Marriage certificates from abroad may need legalisation or apostille before a Nigerian authority will accept them. Find that out now, not at a counter.
Names must match across every document, exactly. A middle name on one and not another, or a maiden name inconsistently applied, will stop an application dead. If there is a discrepancy anywhere in your family's paperwork, fix it before you file anything.
We are not immigration lawyers and we do not pretend to be. What we do is tell you which of the four steps above applies to your household, put you in front of someone competent for the parts that need a professional, assemble and check the document folder, and keep the renewal calendar so nothing lapses while you are busy living.
The families who struggle here are not the ones with complicated cases. They are the ones who assumed their situation was the standard one.
Immigration rules change. Verify current requirements with the Nigeria Immigration Service or a qualified immigration lawyer before acting. Nothing here is legal advice.