Excerpts From Four Online Articles About Contemporary Voluntary Emigration By Nigerians, Particularly Outside Of Africa

Edited by Azizi Powell

Update: January 5, 2020- A fourth excerpt was added to this post.

This is Part I of a pancocojams series about contemporary voluntary emigration by Nigerians outside of Africa.

This post presents excerpts from four online articles about this subject.

I researched information on this subject as a result of reading comments in discussion threads for several YouTube videos of Igbos' (Nigerian) Ogene music and dance. A considerably high number of comments in those videos' discussion threads were from people who noted that they were living in various nations throughout the world. Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2020/01/comments-from-igbos-throughout-world.html for that pancocojams post.

The content of this post is presented for educational purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.

****
ARTICLES AND ARTICLE EXCERPTS ABOUT NIGERIANS MIGRATING TO OTHER NATIONS
Excerpt #1:
From https://www.migrationinstitute.org/files/completed-projects/nigeria-country-paper.pdf/@@download Country Paper: Nigeria
Dynamics of International Migration in Nigeria
(A Review of Literature) 2008
Paper prepared as part of the African Perspectives on Human Mobility Programme, generously funded by the MacArthur Foundation
..."by the late 1980s, some other changes in the economic and political policies of the country resulted in changes in the pattern of migration in Nigeria. One in particular is the adoption of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in June 1986. SAP dictated a shift from the official policy of full employment to substantially
reduced government spending on critical services, such as health, education and housing (Afolayan, 1998). This created a greater tendency for persons to emigrate...

Another cause of migration is the environmental factor (Afolayan and Adelekan, 1998). Climatic and seasonal variability are the primary factors of seasonal migration, while severe drought and periodic environmental hazards are factors for irregular movement. Seasonal migration, especially of the ‘yan cin rani’ type, meaning ‘eating the dry season away’, has been very much evident in the Sokoto area of Northern Nigeria (Prothero, 1957). The more serious drought, of 1972-3, led to a large number, though not well documented, ecologically displaced Internally Displaced Persons

[page] 13/45

(IDPs) into urban centers within the country. For some, the movements were to other locations outside Nigeria, the latter being locations within the Niger and Chad Republics (Prothero, 1959; Mortimore, 1988; Afolayan, 1992).

Circulatory movement started reflecting in both the internal and international labour migration, between the poorer and better-endowed areas of West Africa, as a ‘new’ strategy to mitigate instability of stay away from the source region, Nigeria. This has been the situation long before for nomads; but the novel aspect of it is among migrant laborers and traders, who shuttle between destination and Nigeria, in case of any deportation order (Afolayan, 2004). They feature also in the two categories of movers identified to be crossing the frontiers of West African countries; the transient (commuters, visitors, frontier workers) and permanent migrants (Afolayan, 2000). Labo (2000) described them as people that across the international boundary, even
though they belong to the same ethnic group; yet they are separated by political borders of West African countries.

Moreover, there has been significant international migration of professionals from the region, but there is virtually no documentation of these movements, hence, there is a dearth and virtual absence of empirical research on this important and often the most publicized category of international migrants. By the middle of the 20th century, emigration of professionals, high-level manpower and skilled workers emerged from the developing countries to the developed countries. Brain drains in Nigeria was becoming prominent as from the 1960s, taking a dramatic turn after the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) was introduced in 1985 (Afolayan,1988; Adegbola,1991 Adepoju, 1991).

[page] 14/45

[...]

More recent data on immigration and emigration are estimates derived by varied international agencies and research units. For example, the UNDP and Development Prospect Group (2005) estimated emigrant stock of Nigerians that lived abroad as 836,832 people, forming 0.6 per cent of the country’s estimated population of 117.608 million people in 2005. The top ten countries that the Nigerian emigrants moved to were Sudan; followed by the United States, Great Britain, Cameroon, Ghana, Niger, Germany, Benin, Burkina Faso, and Guinea. For the immigrant stock in 2005, a total number of 971,450 persons were estimated, that is, about 0.7 per cent of the total population of Nigeria (UNDP, Development Prospect Group, 2006). Unlike the situation for emigration, the top source countries were mostly from the neighbouring West African states, of Benin, Ghana, Mali, Togo, Niger, Chad, Cameroon, Liberia, Mauritania and Egypt. Also, immigrants exceeded the number of emigrants by 134,618. Although all these statistics are quite revealing of the dynamics of international migration in Nigeria, there is still the indication of very low level of knowledge on the precise situation of things.

The literature captures some aspects of the diversification of the destinations that emigrants from Nigeria are moving to of recent (Nightingale, 2003; Nwajiuba, 2005; Carling, 2005; Obialo and Museckaite, 2008). The more varied reasons for migrating and the increasing categories of migrants are some of the explanatory factors for the diversified destinations. For example, labour migrants/professionals are migrating in larger numbers to more countries in the developed North, such as the United States of America (US), Saudi Arabia and Western Europe (Denmark, Ireland, France, Spain, Italy), the United Kingdom (UK), and Canada. Likewise, the trafficked children and women in transit move from Nigeria via Mauritania, Morocco to Italy or Spain. Diversified destinations within Africa are also noted, as many emigrants move to South Africa, Botswana, Kenya and Ghana in more recent times than ever before. The numbers in each case is more of estimates than the actual."...

[page] 16/45

****
Excerpt #2:
[contains all of the text, but no graphs]
From https://www.afrobarometer.org/publications/ad231-one-three-nigerians-have-considered-emigration-most-find-economic-opportunity
Publications: AD231: One in three Nigerians have considered emigration, most to find economic opportunity
Dispatches 2018
Dispatches no. 231; Thomas Isbell and Oluwole Ojewale
"Migration has become a top-of-mind and highly politicized issue. In a context of high poverty and unemployment in developing countries and demand for skilled young workers in many developed economies, global streams of people are likely to continue (Rapoza, 2017). Migration can have positive as well as negative consequences for both origin and destination countries. In destination countries, emigration may fill gaps in skilled and unskilled labor. In origin countries, family and friends receive remittances, which help the economy through increased spending. On the other hand, “brain drain” hurts emerging economies in the global South as the best young minds seek education and employment abroad (Capuano & Marfouk, 2013; Kekana, 2018; O’Toole, 2018). And populist movements in Europe and the United States have targeted immigration as a supposed threat to domestic employment, security, and national culture (Galston, 2018; Roth, 2017; Ratcliffe, 2017).

In 2016, Nigerians made up the largest migrant populations entering Italy and Greece (Ikeke, 2017). Nigerians have also been identified as the largest cohort of migrants trapped in Libya in the protracted Mediterranean migrant crisis (Eurostat, 2015). The International Organization for Migration (2018) reported that between May 2017 and January 2018, more than 6,700 Nigerian migrants were returned home from Libya through the efforts of Nigerian and international agencies.

How do ordinary Nigerians see emigration and its causes? Findings from a recent Afrobarometer survey show that more than one in three Nigerians have considered emigration, though far fewer are making actual plans to leave. The data support concerns about brain drain: Young and educated Nigerians are most likely to consider going abroad. Finding work and escaping economic hardship are most often given as the main reason to consider emigrating."

****
Excerpt #3:
From https://qz.com/africa/1615518/nigerias-middle-class-keep-emigrating-to-canada-australia/
Nigeria’s ongoing middle-class brain drain is costing it two generations in one swoop
By Yomi Kazeem, May 25, 2019
"When Timi and Ehis got married in a small, intimate ceremony in Lagos last October, it marked the start of their new lives together—but it was not one they planned to live in Nigeria.

Six months later, the young newlyweds both quit their jobs and moved to Ottawa, Canada joining thousands of middle-class Nigerians who have moved to the North American country through its skilled workers immigration program. Their reason for making the move boils down to one thing: thinking of their future children.

That sentiment cuts across board as thousands of Nigerians increasingly emigrate through a mix of avenues. Skilled worker programs (also referred to as Express Entry) inviting immigrants to Canada and Australia are a popular and legitimate choice. But other choices—including applying for asylum and refugee protection in Canada, sometimes while crossing the US-Canada border illegally—are being explored as well. As of March, Nigeria had more pending refugee protection claims in Canada than any other country globally. There’s also the choice of deliberately overstaying on a visitors’ visa in the United States, a trend that’s proven strong enough for the Trump administration to clampdown on US visas for Nigerians.

[...]

Whatever the method of emigration, pursuing the chance to seek a better life—particularly education for children—remains a common theme. Decades of under-funding have impacted the quality of teachers and lecturers as well as the learning infrastructure in Nigeria’s educational system, leading to significant decline.
Strikes by Nigerian university lecturers protesting low wages and inadequate benefits are now an almost annual occurrence. The lack of investment in public educational institutions has also fueled a rise in expensive private schools and universities for middle and high-income families seeking higher standards. But even those schools pale in comparison with quality of education obtainable outside Nigeria.

“The biggest area of concern for most people who are leaving is getting access to the right type of education for their children,” says Tunde Leye, an economist with Lagos-based SBM Intel who wrote a personal essay on the subject two years ago while considering the move himself. “The point of it all is that here, your money can’t buy you the quality of education that is available abroad and the gap will only get bigger.”

[...]

Not looking back
The lack of faith in Nigeria’s political leaders and their ability to reverse the decline in the educational sector is such that many of the middle-class Nigerians making the exodus to Europe and North America do not trust the situation will change soon. The looming big picture for Nigeria is that many who either have emigrated or plan to are unlikely to return and neither are the children they raise in their new countries of residence.

[...]

It’s hard to miss the general dire outlook on the country’s prospects among Nigerians who emigrate but it’s even harder to miss the factors that inform that outlook. Nigeria’s unemployment rate has climbed for 13 consecutive quarters and an ambitious four-year plan to boost the economy following a recession in 2016 is proving to be a failure. As a consequence of slow economic growth, a ballooning population and years of failed leadership, Nigeria is not only the poverty capital of the world but is set to remain so for at least a generation given its alarmingly low human capital spending.

[...]

As it turns out, the ongoing emigration also compounds the problem as an important socio-economic demographic is increasingly choosing to leave. “Emigration is not cheap and most of the people leaving are not poor by any standard—it’s the rich and middle class that are leaving,” Leye says. “It’s an epidemic but people only do this kind of things when they’ve lost hope.”

But the grass outside Nigeria isn’t necessarily always greener for emigrants as they face real and expensive challenges of relocating, settling into a new country and starting over. For instance, securing white-collar, upwardly mobile employment does not come easy for emigrants especially in countries like Canada that place a strong emphasis on local expertise or education. As such, highly qualified individuals who leave high-level jobs in Nigeria often have to trade down to restart their lives.

In one case, an experienced optometrist, who asked not to be named, obtained a resident permit and moved to Calgary last year but says she will have to take expensive certification courses for up to four years before being able to practice and works at a grocery store in the interim. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s an even tougher reality for immigrants who move by overstaying visas illegally as, without valid work permits and social security, their job prospects are very limited.

Despite the known challenges, the possibility of a higher quality of life and education for their children remains a strong pull for several middle-class Nigerians who can afford to move. For their part, one month after moving to Ottawa, Ehis and Timi have both secured jobs and are positive they made the right choice. They also plan to start a family in Canada and stay there for the education of their future children. “That’s the major reason behind the move,” Ehis says."...

****
Excerpt #4
From https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/nigeria-multiple-forms-mobility-africas-demographic-giant
"Nigeria: Multiple Forms of Mobility in Africa's Demographic Giant"
JUNE 30, 2010 PROFILE by Blessing U. Mberu, Roland Pongou

[...]

"Migration since Independence

Flows from Nigeria to countries beyond the region did not occur on a large scale until after independence in 1960. From the 1950s through the 1970s, the emerging elites moved mainly to the United Kingdom due to the legacy of colonial ties, for educational pursuit, and in a few cases for administrative matters.

The expectation was that Nigerian students would return with valuable skills needed for nation building. Indeed, most Nigerians educated abroad in the 1960s and 1970s readily came home after completing their education to assured plum jobs in the civil service or the burgeoning oil and private sectors of the economy.

After independence in 1960, this largely highly skilled migration to the United Kingdom continued, although an increasing proportion of Nigerians also migrated to the United States for study, business, and work.

As political tensions engulfed Nigeria and as its economy stagnated in the late 1970s and 1980s, the stream of emigrants increased. Unlike previous emigrants, these Nigerians tended to stay abroad for longer periods after graduating, and some never returned.

Consequently, a well-developed culture of professional migration emerged. By 1978, an estimated 30,000 Nigerian graduates from UK higher institutions were living outside Africa, with 2,000 of them living in the United States. In 1984, the Nigerian population living in the United States had increased to 10,000 according to Afoloyan and colleagues; many were highly skilled.

In addition to the poor economy, Nigerian-based professionals left because of the austerity measures of the Structural Adjustment Program, which the government agreed to as a condition of a loan from the International Monetary Fund in the mid-1980s. Because the program included devaluing the national currency, wages for professionals became lower and working conditions worsened.

As desperation in the country continued, many less-educated youth became significant part of the emigration stream. By the early 2000s, an increasing number of Nigerians had migrated to countries such as Spain, Italy, Ireland Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium, as well as the Gulf states.

More recent migrants to continental European countries are reported to be less skilled on average, and more often work in the formal and, particularly in southern Europe, informal service, trade, and agricultural sectors. However, the United Kingdom and, in particular, the United States (through student and professional migration as well as the green card lottery) generally continue to attract the relatively higher skilled workers.

In addition, relatively highly skilled nurses and doctors were recruited from Nigeria to work in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states."...

****
This concludes Part I of this pancocojams series.

Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.