The migration of young Nigerians represents a “failure of leadership”, according to Cardinal John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, Archbishop of Abuja.
Speaking to Agenzia Fides earlier this week on the eve of a meeting of bishops on the issue of migration, Cardinal Onaiyekan accused authorities of creating conditions which ensure more and more young people are driven to seek the path of migration.
“If I were the president of a country in which young people continue to make such statements, I would not hesitate to resign,” he was quoted as saying. “I remember well when as a child at school, decades ago, I loved Nigeria and openly declared it, because I could count on a government that took care of me, and I had promises for the future ahead of me. Today’s situation is exactly the opposite”.
He added: “If you live in a country where young people tell you that it is better to live elsewhere, this is the sign of the failure of an entire leadership.”
Referring to the trafficking of Nigerian girls who end up working as prostitutes in Europe, especially Italy, the cardinal said he was “ashamed when I walk the streets of Rome, Milan or Naples and see the daughters of this country for sale on the streets”.
“I stop and even greet some of them, you cannot even engage them in conversation because they were brought out of the village [as] illiterates. All they learn and all they know on the streets of Italy is what they need for this business.”
Fides quoted figures from Pan-African research network Afrobarometer which show that 35 per cent of Nigerians want to leave the country and 11 per cent said they were thinking seriously about it.
It also revealed that 75 per cent of those Nigerians who want to emigrate do so for economic reasons such unemployment, to escape from poverty or to seek out better opportunities. The research also found that it is the more educated young people who want to emigrate – about 44 per cent of Nigerians with a degree would like to leave the country, while, according to another survey, 80 per cent of doctors want to move abroad.
