Migration Profile on Nigeria - IOM Publications - International ...

<strong>Migration</strong> barely features in Nigeria’s main development plans, such as the
National Economic Employment Development Strategy (NEEDS) and the state
and local government counterparts (SEEDS and LEEDS), as a development factor.
The draft national policy on migration is, therefore, an innovative initiative as it
covers migration and development issues.
Data gaps
In order to facilitate the updates of the <strong>Migration</strong> <strong>Profile</strong>, the timeliness,
processing and analysis of migration data need to be improved. A review of the
data sources available for the <strong>Migration</strong> <strong>Profile</strong> of Nigeria revealed that most of
the data available are stock data and outdated. The 1963 and 1991 Censuses
and the 1991 Post-census Enumeration Survey (PES), which were carried out
by federal government institutions, do not always examine the standard four
migration variables: place of birth; citizenship; previous place of residence; and
place of residence at a prior fixed date. The only relatively comprehensive data
source for Nigeria was the 1991 PES of the National Population Commission
(NPC, 1998). Although the Nigeria Immigration Service collects a wealth of
administrative data on entries, departures and registration, the lack of data
disaggregation by sex, age and other relevant characteristics makes meaningful
analysis difficult. There is no known collated official data on Nigerian emigrants
from any of the Nigerian ministries or agencies. Embassies may collect data, but
these are not made available to the public. Another challenge to developing a
database is the issue of confidentiality in collecting and sharing migration data, as
well as the lack of unified documentation at the local, regional and international
levels.
<strong>Migration</strong> in Nigeria: A Country <strong>Profile</strong> 2009
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