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Number Of Migrants Increasing Within Nigerian Borders — ILO

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) says outgoing and incoming migrants are increasing within the Nigerian borders.

The ILO Senior Technical Specialist on Workers’ Activities, Abuja Office, Inviolata Chinyangarara, made this known at a two-day consultative workshop on Tuesday in Abuja.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the workshop was organised to define a roadmap for the development of a Trade Union Labour Migration Policy.

According to Chinyangarara, counting labour migration trends figures is a challenge because migration can be regular or irregular.

“Some coming in are counted because they come through the regular process, airports and other ports of entry but the majority that are vulnerable that in precarious situation are those that are coming through irregular means.

“But ILO statistics also show that they the trends are increasing, that is outgoing and income migrants, particularly within the Nigerian borders, ’’she said.

She said that labour migration was triggered by social, political and economic issues such as climate-induced on labour migration, disasters, pandemics and other crisis, trigger people to move.

According to her, our statistics also show that largely in Africa, people are moving for economic reasons, particularly the young men and women.

“When they find that there are no jobs, no prospects for livelihood, they are pushed to move to other countries where they can find greener pastures for employment or enterprise development,’’ she said.

She however noted that the sectors highly hit by migration include health and construction sectors, cross borders traders and domestic service sectors “are highly mobile’’.

She said that there was brain drain of highly skilled medical personnel, others, leaving the shores of African countries to get better jobs in neighbouring countries.

“That is why the ILO has come up with a global International Standards that is protecting and promoting the rights domestic workers, that is Convention 189,’’ she said.

Chinyangarara said that ILO was collaborating with the tripartite constituency in Nigeria on issues of decent work and particularly on labour migration governance, to ensure the promotion of rights of migrants, among others.

According to her, this is to brainstorm around a roadmap for the development of a Trade Union Labour Migration Policy, understanding that in 2014, the Ministry of Labour spearheaded the process to develop the policy.

“So, leveraging on that the trade unions are also going to brainstorm on this workshop some of these national frameworks including global frameworks such as the agenda 2030 for sustainable development.

“We are also going to look at the ECOWAS Protocol on Movement of Goods and Persons, we also going to look at relevant ILO International Labour Standards.

“It is some of these documents that would then inspire the content in the process of developing the Trade Union Labour Migration Policy.

“We are going to look at what is going to change in the process of the review and what are the new antics that COVID-19 pandemic, others have brought to bear,’’ she said.

The federal government has appealed to the UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) to provide technical support to address Nigeria’s rising unemployment rate.

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, said this when the new ILO Country Director to Nigeria visited him in his office on Thursday in Abuja.

Ngige noted that the support had become necessary as the number of unemployment and underemployed keep rising.

”We want to use this opportunity to ask for more technical support. It is not easy, especially in view of the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on countries. We are hoping that ILO will carve a special place for Nigeria so that we can make (an) impact on job creation.

We need to create jobs here. We are battling unemployment, and the figure of unemployment here in Nigeria is mind-boggling,” he said.

According to him, it has risen to 33 per cent, adding that when underemployed and unemployed are computed, it will rise to 35, or 36 per cent.

Ngige seeking the help of the organisation, stated, ”So, we need some ILO experts to be giving to us or for them to be visiting our country on (a) quarterly basis. That is, every three months so that we can work together to fashion out things we can do to reduce the high rate of unemployment in our country.”

On the issue of labour laws, the minister disclosed that the laws were obsolete and currently undergoing review.

”We have got everybody, the lawmakers on board after an initial setback, through adequate liaison with the National Assembly Committee, on Labour. We are hopeful that after the recess of the National Assembly, final legislative work on the review will commence,” he said.

The minister further said the National Labour Advisory Council, previously dogged by budget constraints, was inaugurated, with its first sitting already held.

“After budgetary constraints over the years, this 2021, we were able to weather the storm and inaugurated the body in Owerri,” Ngige added.

He commended ILO for supporting the government.

The ILO Country Director, Vanessa Phala, said, “Over the years, the ILO has enjoyed quite a favourable working relationship and collaboration with the ministry, and it is my intention to maintain such.

”The purpose of our visit beyond the courtesy call is to touch base on a number of issues so that we will be able to respond accordingly to the technical requirement of the ministry”.

Ms Phala explained that her visit was to inquire about Nigeria’s efforts of Nigeria to review its labour laws and progress made after the inauguration of the NLAC.