Rural-urban Migration and the Underdevelopment in Selected Rural Communities in Imo State, Nigeria

Abstract

Rural-urban migration is a phenomenon that most developing nations of the world are experiencing due to the gross neglect of the rural areas. In Nigeria, the issue of rural-urban migration is quite alarming owing to the discriminatory centralization of facilities in the cities as well as widening income gap between the urban and rural areas. In fact this skewed developmental process that favours the urban centers has remained the major problem causing the underdevelopment of the rural areas. The overall objective of the study is to examine the effect of rural-urban migration in the underdevelopment of selected rural communities in Imo state, Nigeria. The specific objectives are to; determine the causes of rural-urban migration in the selected communities; determine the age bracket at which people mostly migrate to cities; find out the sex mostly involved in out-migration and find out the consequences of out-migration in the underdevelopment of the areas. In carrying out the study, survey research design was employed in which interview and questionnaire were used. One hundred and fifty copies of the questionnaire were distributed to respondents drawn from the three communities selected from the three geo-political zones in Imo state. Out of this number, one hundred and thirty copies were returned and used for analysis. For the data analysis, frequency distribution tables and percentages were used. The findings showed among others that; rural-urban migration is caused due to low employment opportunities in the rural areas; inadequate provision of social infrastructure in the rural areas and to escape from the unattractive/dull nature of rural areas. Secondly, people between the ages of 21-26,15-20 and 33-38 years respectively mostly migrate to cities; males are more prone to rural-urban migration than females; and finally, that out-migration has led to loss of local manpower, fall in agricultural productivity, degeneration of indigenous skill etc. In order to reduce the trend of rural-urban migration, we recommend the following that; government should decentralize its developmental projects and programmes in order to accommodate the rural areas, government should make agriculture attractive for rural dwellers so that they could see it as a profitable occupation, there should be economic incentives to promote adaptation of indigenous skills and technologies in the rural areas etc.