Poll: Unemployment, Reason for Nigerian Youths’ Migration to Europe

The issue of the inability of the Nigerian government to tackle the seemingly intractable problem of unemployment has been fingered as the reason why Nigerian youths risk their lives through dangerous Sahara desert routes to Libya in their bid to reach mainland Europe via the Mediterranean Sea.

In a new poll conducted by the National Association of Seadogs (NSA) on its twitter handle, @NASPC1952, as part of its ongoing campaign to draw the attention of the world to the unacceptable practice of slavery going on in Libya, the president of the organisation worldwide, Arthur Boje, stated that: “Part of the strategy is also to keep and retain the conversation on slavery in Libya as a major burner in the public space.”

Responding to the question “LIBYA SLAVE TRADE: What should be done to discourage Nigerians from these dangerous journeys?” the sample size participants of 222 Nigerians, who were given four options to choose from that include: Tackle unemployment, instant deportation, deportees to pay for their flight tickets back to Nigeria and public enlightenment, all came up with different options they think could checkmate the trend.

At the end of the exercise which lasted for 48 hours, 64 per cent of those sampled chose the tackling of unemployment as the only panacea for stopping young Nigerians from embarking on these suicidal missions to Europe.

Twenty-five per cent listed public enlightenment as the solution, while 6 per cent and 5 per cent point at the radical step of instant deportation and deportees shouldering the cost of their deportation respectively as the answers to discourage these undocumented migrations.

However, in rejecting the issue of unemployment as the reason why youths embark on these perilous adventures, one of the participants in the poll, Akanariko Adiri, in his tweet argued  that: “The spate of emigration is not fuelled by unemployment, especially as 75% of victims pay as high as 500k for the journey to Europe through Libya,” but insisted that the blame should be laid on the doorstep of the greed and inordinate ambition of these young lads.

On his part, Jones Inyang, while accepting unemployment as the immediate cause of these misadventures, also urged the federal government to reform the Nigeria Immigration Service.

The auctioning of young black African migrants in Libya since the revealing Cable News Network (CNN) documentary has drawn a worldwide condemnation of the act with a call on the unstable government in Libya to bring the perpetrators to justice.

NAS is putting final touches to its planned picketing of the Libyan Embassies in Lagos, Abuja and other parts of the world where they maintain embassies like in Europe, USA, Canada and Australia where the organisation also has visible presence.

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