•BANC says irregular migration fuelled by poverty, instability Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Senator Abubakar Bagudu, has said the realisation of President Bola Tinubu administration’s trillion-dollar economy target would drastically reduce the problem of irregular migration, popularly known as Japa syndrome in Nigeria. Bagudu spoke yesterday in Abuja at an anti-migration summit organised by a non-governmental organisation, Blacks Ancestral Native Communities (BANC). He said the present administration was making efforts to curtail irregular migration by Nigerians through policies and programmes targeted at boosting the economy and creating employment.
The minister said most of the policy measures being pursued by the federal government were meant to support the country’s aspiration to attain higher economic goals. Bagudu said the federal government realised the urgent need to advance the economy to an enviable level, where it could support Nigeria’s leadership status as the pride of Africa. He said, “A two trillion-dollar economy will support the correction of all of what we are here talking about – irregular migration or the Japa syndrome in Nigeria.
Nigeria is not seeking to end migration by her citizens, but to ensure that people only migrate out of choice, not by compulsion.” Bagudu said irregular migration had a lot of unintended negative outcomes, adding that human trafficking and drug peddling are some of the ills tha.