By Tosin Olatokunbo
The number of Nigerians fleeing the country over unemployment has increased astronomically, the World Bank has said in a report. The Brenton wood-based institution said economic frustration in the last 10 years has pushed more Nigerians, particularly youths to seek asylum in other countries.
The report comes on the heels of President Muhammadu Buhari’s promise to lift more than 100 million out of acute poverty in 10 years.
“Nigeria attaches great importance to poverty eradication. It is for this reason that in May, 2019, on my inauguration for a second term in office, our government committed itself to starting a new programme of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty within a 10-year period,” Buhari said recently.
In the report titled: ‘Of Roads Less Travelled: Assessing the Potential for Migration to Provide Overseas Jobs for Nigeria’s Youth’, the World Bank said factors such as rising unemployment, booming demographics, and unfulfilled aspirations are pushing more Nigerians to seek greener pastures oversees.
The situation, the bank said has spiked the number of Nigerians that have left the country from 446,806 in 1990 to 1,438,331 in 2019, while the number of international migrants has slightly increased from 0.5 per cent to 0.7 per cent within the same period.
The report said “An important trend that is observed in the data is the rise in the number of refugees and asylum seekers from Nigeria. The share of refugees and asylum seekers from Nigeria has increased drastically in the last decade, growing from 27,557 in 2010 to 408,078 in 2019.”
The bank also noted that Nigeria has benefited from its citizens in the diaspora, which was put at five per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2019.
The report further stated that “Nigeria is facing one of the most acute jobless crises in recent times. Between 2014 and 2020, Nigeria’s working age population grew from 102 million to 122 million, growing at an average rate of approximately 3 per cent per year.
“Similarly, Nigeria’s active labour force population, that is, those willing and able to work among the working age population, grew from 73 million in 2014 to 90 million in 2018, adding 17.5 million new entrants to Nigeria’s active labour force.
“Since 2018, however, the active labour force population has dramatically decreased to around 70 million—lower than the level in 2014— while the number of Nigerians who are in the working-age population but not active in the labour force has increased from 29 million to 52 million between 2014 and 2020.
“The expanding working-age population combined with scarce domestic employment opportunities is creating high rates of unemployment, particularly for Nigeria’s youth,” the World Bank report said.
Also between 2010 and 2020, the international financial institution estimated that the unemployment rate rose five-fold, from 6.4 per cent in 2010 to 33.3 per cent in 2020, with the rates being particularly acute since the 2015/2016 economic recession and further worsened as COVID-19 led to the worst recession in four decades in 2020.
Increasingly, it noted that educated Nigerians were struggling to find employment opportunities in the country while unemployment rates increased substantially for Nigerians across all education levels over the years, becoming progressively challenging for educated Nigerians to find employment opportunities.
“Combined with significant demographic changes and increased aspirations of the youth, Nigeria’s unemployment crisis is creating migratory pressure in the economy. Unemployment is considered to be a key driver of migration. Consequently, multiple surveys show that the number of Nigerians, who are looking to migrate internationally is high and increasing,” the bank stated.
