The International Labour Organisation (ILO) said the reason Nigerians, especially youths, engage in irregular migration is because the government has failed to provide enough jobs locally.
The ILO said this trait is not peculiar to Nigeria alone, but cuts across the African continent where population growth is rapid.
The ILO’s official, Ms Lotte Kesjer, who is a Chief Technical Adviser and Labour Migration Expert at the FMM West Africa disclosed this during a meeting with the Chairman of Nigerian Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM) Abike Dabiri-Erewa.
The FMM West Africa project aims at maximising the development potential of free movement of persons and migration in West Africa. To this end, it supports migration data management, border management, labour migration and combating trafficking in persons in West Africa.
FMM West Africa is jointly funded by the European Union and ECOWAS and implemented by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in partnership with the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) and the International Labour Organization (ILO).
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She said the ILO with partners is currently working on how to develop the skills of migrants so that they could fix into the societies where they find themselves.
Her words: “ILO is already working on irregular migration supported by our partners such as EU and other donors, this is the project am working on.
“We are promoting regular migration opportunities, trying to match skills, and at the same time raising awareness about the hazard of going irregularly, of trusting any agent or anybody who tells you the have a job for you somewhere.
“We know that the awareness-raising has been going on in Nigeria and other countries for a long time now, we still find that some people are so desperate looking for job, they will trust people, they will even think that they are their friends, saviour and so on, benefactors, only when they arrive and find out what was really behind those job offers, and they will find out that they were deceived, and we know the serious consequences of this, many people are paying a lot of money or they are obliged to work a forced labour in terrible conditions.
“So, we are discussing how we can help Nigeria and also help ECOWAS commission to work on this in effective way, there is skills need overseas, we know the demographic development in Africa is population growth but in other parts of the world is declining, there is need for skilled labour.
“The challenge Africa has, and of course Nigeria is part of these countries is that unfortunately, the economy does not develop enough job for the youths, hence this interest to migrate no matter what the circumstances is.
“This is what we have to help change, so the ILO with the labour mandate and employment mandate is doing it’s very best to do this kind of work with our partners such as the EU and donors.”
In her words, the Chairman of NIDCOM’s, Abike Dabiri-Erewa said the issue of irregular migration has been topical in Nigeria in the sense that people are deceived to travel abroad where they end up disappointed.
She urged the ILO to continue its plan to ensure that Nigerian travel regularly to abroad in search of jobs instead of irregularly.
“The issue of migration has been topical, how can we make irregular migration regular, we have a lot of people promised jobs abroad but it turns out to be a hoax.
“So, you need the job, we have the manpower, so rather than going irregularly, how can we make it regular.
“It looks so hard but it can be done, so with your focus on this and preparation of policy document, an sure we can achieve better regular migrant because a lot of people are going in search of greener pasture, they just want to work.
“So, we believe working with you with other EU countries, in particular, this can be achievable. We thank you for taking your time to dwell on this matter specifically,” she said.
A Consultant with the ILO, Francesco Panziga, in his remarks, said they visited in order to understand the plans the NIDCOM is implementing not just for migrants, but also for the citizens to contribute towards the development of the country.
He also said they were also interested in knowing how skills development would be of help to migrants abroad.
“We came here to visit the Chairperson of the Diaspora organisation in order to understand the plans the agency is implementing not just for the community abroad, but also the community can create and maintain with the country of origin and contribute to the development.
“We are also interested to see in which way that skills development can be helpful to migrants abroad,” he noted.
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