Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) has urged the Federal Government to provide an enabling economic environment to curtail migration of Nigerians to other countries for greener pastures.

The Executive Director of CISLAC, Mr Auwal Musa, made the call on Sunday in Abuja.

Musa said the federal government should develop policies and social infrastructure that would spur economic development across the country as part of the initiatives to also curtail rural-urban migration.

According to him, the inability of governments to provide necessary economic and social infrastructures for the people was responsible for their rural-urban migration.

He said the migrants did so in search of greener pastures in foreign countries.
Musa said many lives were being lost due to rural-urban migration in search for jobs and searching for greener pastures in foreign countries.

The executive director said that the National Migration Policy (NMP) was a right step in the right direction as it might be another way the government could monitor the number of migrants and immigrants.

Musa said that the policy would reduce irregular immigration and migration as well as eradicate trafficking in persons.

He said there was need for effective implementation of the NMP as well as rigorous sensitisation of the populace on its existence and normative contents.

The executive director recalled that the drafting of the policy started in 2006 but that it was only approved by the Federal Government in May 2015.

Similarly, Mr Tunde Omoyeni, a Programme Assistant, International Organisation for Migration (IOM), siad that there was need for Nigerian youths to be mindful of how they migrate to other countries for greener pastures.

According to him, you can remain in Nigeria and still be what you want to be.
Omoyeni urged those who wished to migrate to do so in accordance to the law of the countries they were migrating to.
 
He called on the government to reduce the root causes of regular migration which could be traced to inequality and poverty.

Omoyeni also urged state governments to put in place necessary amenities to guard against rural-urban migration in their respective states.