Nigeria is located on the western coast of Africa. It is the most populous country in Africa and consists of 36 states plus Abuja, the Federal capital city of the country. Nigeria is known for large deposits of petroleum and natural gas and has numerous natural resources. It has a huge youth population amounting to over 60% of its entire population. With all these characteristics, Nigeria is seemingly going through turbulent challenges arising from internal political crises, economic cataclysm, and insecurity of various sorts. All these actually amount to the push factors for many Nigerian youths to seek migration both legally and irregularly majorly to North America and Europe. The conflict-ridden situation in Nigeria also amplified trans-border crime in illicit drug peddling, contraband smuggling, human trafficking, and modern-day slavery among others. Worse-off is the trending slavery by Libyans and other African accomplices along the Mediterranean coast, of Nigerians and fellow Africans who indulge in irregular migration through the Sahara desert into Libya.
MIGRATION PUSH FACTORS IN NIGERIA
Nigeria continues to experience high internal and external migration due to the size of its population, economic crisis, unemployment, insurgency, and porous borders. The combination of enduring high-intensity terrorist attacks, kidnapping, routine violence, and physical insecurity, unfulfilled economic potential, and a huge population of youths with frustrated ambitions has led to massive outflows from several Nigerian states, including Lagos, Edo, and Delta states. Some migration researchers and experts indicated that nearly one in four households in Benin City in Edo State had one of its members attempt to migrate in the previous year. Those who choose to migrate most often take an extremely dangerous route to Europe, traveling across the Saharan desert in the Niger Republic to the Mediterranean Sea. Death, injury, robbery, sexual violence, and kidnapping are common along this route. Furthermore, individuals living in Lagos, Edo, and Delta states experience high levels of physical insecurity, including electoral violence, localized communal clashes, violent crime, and altercations in everyday life. They say one in three respondents reported having experienced a physical attack within the last year 2020, and those who had were more likely to report an intent to migrate.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS TO CURB IRREGULAR MIGRATION IN NIGERIA
Globally, irregular migration and human trafficking have reached crisis proportions in fragile and conflict-affected states. European countries have invested heavily in programs that aim to prevent irregular African migration, with an emphasis on information campaigns that emphasize the dangers of the migration journey and highlight existing economic opportunities at home. Yet we lack answers to basic questions about how individuals weigh the risks and benefits of migration, and whether exposure to conflict distorts this process. These answers matter for migration-related programs and policies.
As a way of resolving the numerous migration challenges in the country, the following suggestions could be given due consideration:
- Nigeria’s federal government should dialogue with individual neighboring African countries, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), African Union (AU), European Union (EU), and United Nations (UN) to establish strong cooperation to control illegal migration and acts of criminality against migrants.
- The EU countries especially need to revisit their migration policies to adjust restrictions of entry from Africa and encourage more legal migration policies. This will discourage African youth from embarking on deadly irregular migration.
- The EU should work on creating an enabling environment for African migrants in the continent to live and express their fundamental human rights freely without the fear of victimization, jail, and deportation.
- African governments at large need to prioritize economic development through investment in the youth, education, and job creation as a way to curb the migration crisis.
- The global community needs to agree on a single and comprehensive narrative that would criminalize perpetrators of human trafficking and modern slavery as a way of ending the menace. There is a need to work more in developing policies and frameworks to tackle the root causes of the migration crisis.
In conclusion, it is relevant to mention that it is important for Nigeria’s government to be swift in resolving the insecurity and economic crises in the nation to reduce the desperation of her giant youth population to migrate both legally and irregularly. The government also needs to create enabling business environment, researchers, and scholars on many socio-cultural issues affecting the nation. The government of Nigeria also needs to work with the international community in resolving the various migration challenges affecting the nation and continent at large. Moreover, it is still a known fact that human trafficking is closely linked with other organized crimes, such as drug smuggling, organ harvesting, arms proliferation, and terrorism. Stronger multilateral diplomacy including international joint military actions needs to be pursued by the international community against these crimes. However, these crimes are interlinked, and because of the continuous porous of national boundaries as a result of globalization and search for green pastures, there is every possibility of a spillover effect of what is happening in Libya to other parts of the region in North Africa. If the proper and immediate step of action is not taken most African countries may return to the dark times of multiple civil wars and coup d’état.
Solomon Obanlais a trained diplomat, migration consultant, social researcher, Gender and Peacebuilding analyst, Peer Educator, facilitator and community mobilizer. He obtained a master’s degree in Gender and Peacebuilding at Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar, Senegal and a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations at Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria. Twitter @obanla_oluwafe