JIFORM, Committe On Diaspora Decry Increasing Number Of Migrants

Ismail Abdulaziz
Feb, Fri, 2021

Foreign

JIFORM, Committe on diaspora decry increasing number of migrants

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By Ibironke Ariyo
The Journalist International Forum for Migration (JIFORM) and the House of Representatives committee on Diaspora have decried the continuous increase in number of migrants across the world.

The President of JIFORM, Mr Ajibola Abayomi, said this at the African Migration Summit organised by JIFORM and Nekotech Centre of Excellence, on Thursday in Accra, Ghana.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the theme of the summit is Labour Migration: Shifting the Paradigm to benefit Africa.

“According to the United Nations (UN) the estimated number of international migrants worldwide increased in the twenty years between 2000 and 2020, reaching 281 million in 2020.

“This figure is up from 248 million in 2015, 220 million in 2010, 191 million in 2005 and 173 million in 2000.

“In the past two decades, the international migrant stock grew annually by an average of 2.4 per cent. The growth rate increased to 2.5 per cent during the period 2015-2020 from 2.3 per cent between 2010 and 2015,” he said

Abayomi however, said that in spite of the increase, the share of international migrants in proportion to the world’s population had remained relatively stable between 1990 and 2020 at around 2.8 to 3.6 per cent.

According to him, we can no longer live in denial that all is well. Thousands of souls of future leaders are perishing on the Mediterranean Sea as a result of irregular migration.

“In 2020 according to the United Nations out of about 3,101 migrants that died globally while trying to reach their destinations, 1,483 of them were Africans. This percentage is huge, ” he said.

The Chairman, House of Representatives committee on Diaspora, Mrs Tolulope Akande-Sadipe, said that more people than ever were willing to leave their country for another, adding that migration had become a global issue.

Akande-Sadipe noted that at the end of 2018, the number of forced displaced people top 70 million, saying that the number includes almost 26 million refugees, 3.5 asylum seekers, 41 million Internally displaced persons,

She said that people migrate mostly in search of job opportunities, to join families, to study, adding that others used it for terrorism, to escape convictions and even jail.

“But truth be told, can we stop anybody from having a better life? Of course we cannot. I, saddled with the responsibility of the persons in diaspora, I could not possibly stop the migrants for making an attempt to try and get a better life.

“How can we tell them not to? Nigeria, right now, more than half of the population of adult still indicates the interest of leaving the country in spite of all the media information circulating all round about the problem they will face if they leave the country.

“I want to assure all, that we will continue to do our best and that there is readiness of the 9th assembly to formulate legislations to stem the tide,” she said.

Akande-Sadipe commended the JIFORM and Nekotech Centre of Excellence for bringing the summit together to fight the menace of Migration in the continent.

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