Speaking at the maiden National Migration Dialogue in Abuja on Thursday, President Goodluck Jonathan said currently, remittances by Nigerians abroad exceed Overseas Development Assistance (ODA).
Jonathan, represented by the Vice-President, Alhaji Namadi Sambo, explained that “there are evidences to show that Nigeria has the highest volume of international migrants living outside the shores of our national boundary.”
He said: “The total volume of remittance transfers globally to developing countries far exceeds Overseas Development Assistance (ODA). Nigeria is the largest recipient of remittances in sub-Saharan Africa, with receipt of approximately 65 per cent of officially recorded remittances into the region, and two per cent of global flows.
“Statistics from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) indicate that remittances through the banking system stood at $5.8 billion in 2005, $10.7 billion in 2007, $19.2 billion in 2008, $20.6 billion in 2012 and $20.76 billion in 2013. This clearly indicates a growing trend in the inflow of remittances from Nigerians in the Diaspora.
“While remittances are private funds used by migrants’ families to meet daily needs such as health, education and food, they are also invested in improvements to homes, the purchase of landed property and entrepreneurial activities, among others. Government will continually deploy strategies to encourage the willingness of Nigerians in the diaspora to invest remittances in social infrastructure, human capital development and other economic activities.”
Jonathan further stressed: “Hence, the need to promote the transfer of remittances through efficient formal channels at low transfer cost, as well as to encourage senders and recipients to invest part of their savings.”
The Minister of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs, Taminu Turaki, said though “migration did not gain prominence in national discourse until 2002 when the government was confronted with the reality of Nigerian youths transiting through the Sahara desert to sojourn abroad in search of greener pastures. Between then and now, the landscape of migration discourse has greatly changed; the level of awareness is at all time high; Nigeria has realised the potential benefit of migration to national development.
“Hence, the need for the elaboration of a National Migration Policy that seeks to provide coherence in the administration of migration issues in Nigeria. The National Migration Dialogue therefore, is a strategy designed to sustain the increasing awareness and importance of migration as a function of population dynamics with great potentials for national development.
According to the Federal Commissioner for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), Hadiza Kangiwa, what Nigeria proposed and is witnessing today, is to, in effect, bring migration discourse down and closer to the grassroots.
She added that they are the real people who feel the impact of the positives and negatives of migration management or mismanagement.
Kangiwa observed that “if we have institutionalised the UN HLD and GFMD at the Global Level, and the MIDWA at the regional level, then we must have a process at the national/local level where the real actors can interface; have a common understanding of what the issues are relative to their peculiar migratory environment, and then feed into the regional and global bodies.”
Speaking at the event, the Swiss Deputy Ambassador, Daniel Cavegn, said the Swiss government would continue to provide the impetus to assist Nigeria in reaching its potentials and tapping the benefits from Nigerian migrants abroad.
Source: ThisDay
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