Migration: Population Trends and Policies - Essay Example

In the recent times, it has emerged as a highly sensitive issue for socio-economic development of nations, especially for developing and under developed economies. The paper would, therefore, primarily be discussing the population trend and policy challenges for migration of people in Nigeria. The socio-political and historical context of developing nations is hugely important issue for understanding the wider ramifications of internal and external migration of people across geographical borders.

Nigeria has emerged as the most populous state of Africa with 158.3 million population and tenth most populated country in the world (IOM, 2011). Though it had gained independence in 1960 from colonial rulers, they had nevertheless, exploited the human resource and stripped the nation of its natural resources, leaving it in abject poverty. Adepoju, (1974) claims that during colonial rule in Africa, the population movement was mainly in groups for internecine war, in search of farm land, natural disaster or colonization where labor exploitation was rampant for mining and plantation workers.

The socio-political and economic factors are major drivers for internal, intra regional and international migration. Nigeria has witnessed huge diversity in its migration (Blench, 2004). While 1960s and 1970s has seen people returning to their home countries after acquiring necessary skills, 1980s and 1990s have stressed the fact that increasingly, migrants have preferred to stay back in their host countries or move on to other countries to maintain higher level of economic well being. The migration from rural to urban areas has also been important factor in the urbanization as non arable farms have led to the mass movement of workers to seek financial security in other regions.

Abuja, the capital city of Nigeria has seen unprecedented increase in population from 378,361 in 1991 to 778,567 in 1999 (Blessing, 2010). Interestingly, due to internal