Dashing into Unknown Territory Spells Doom, Intending Migrants Admonished

Michael Olugbode in Abuja 

Nigerians have been advised to take time out to learn about the country they may be planning to migrate to as a dash into an unknown territory could spell doom and further set the migrant back.

Legal migration pathway was at the front burner of discussion at a two-day seminar organised by the European Union (EU) in collaboration with the International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policies (FIIAPP) to curb the excesses of irregular migration, as well as orientate those who have the intention of migrating to Europe. 

The resource person at the seminar, Ositadinmma Osemene, said: “For someone to migrate legally, you need to know and understand the principle and regulations of the country you want go to, as we all know that different country have different policies and guidelines that guide the migrant. So If you are migrating, first things you should have in mind is the migration policy of the country you’re going and the directives.

“Like EU, they have seven directives pathway policies that covered EU countries and the opportunities that migrant can tap into which will give them guarantee of living in any of EU countries.

“If you understand over the period of years, we have been talking about issues of irregular migration, human trafficking prevention and people have been campaigning, yet you will see increase in irregular migration, people still embark on dangerous journey, people still acquire fake documents, people still get deceived by travelling agents instead of giving them visa for stay, they give them visa for visiting or tourist. So you will now find out that there is a vacuum in providing the real information about what you need to know before you can acquire this and travel to these countries. 

“And these things you need to know are to be provided by the countries that you are going to, not by Nigeria, or not by the third countries, as being pronounced by EU countries. So the EU countries now have come up with this programme, a seminar on legal pathway to regular migration. And they have come up by giving us and providing us the general framework and also providing us with the directives. These directives are those requirements, those policies, those articles that you need to look at what is involved.”

Osemewe further explained the need to follow these seven pathways as they apply to the migrant, saying they are, family reunification, employment as seasonal workers, intra cooperative transfer, pairs, long term mobility permit, single permit and researcher/student directives. 

According to him, “Even though you are a regular migrant, there are criteria you will need to meet up with either you want to extend your stay or apply for any of these legal migration pathway. The benefit of this to the society at large is that, if you are willing or going to ‘JAPPA’, you will be well informed, it will also enable you to follow the right way as the case may be.”

The seminar, which includes 25 selected members of the civil society organisations (CSOs) in all six geo political zones in Nigeria in partnership with FIIAPP, are given mandates to disseminate this information to the grassroots and is expected to yield positive impacts. 

The objective of the seminar is to concentrate on stepping it down to the local community, so that everyone will be aware of the danger of irregular migration and the opportunities that are available in case you are planning to travel to any of the EU countries.

One of the participants, Mr Samuel Orovwuje, who spoke to journalists, said: “One of the challenges in migration and development is that people don’t have sufficient information that will prepare them to use the normal channel. So, this opportunity of migrants save for legal migration is a welcome development and we think we can exploit this opportunity to improve on migration to Europe, particularly the European Union.

“But what is key from this seminar is that you have legal migration pathway that helps you to properly migrate to Europe, and that we have to reduce the negative impacts of irregular migration.”

An expert in migration matters, Dr. Tola Winjobi, in a comment, said government needs to play a major role to dissuade members of the public from irregular migration.